wmssmmsmmmmmsmmmmmmmmmmsmmwm^^ 



I OLD WORLD STEPS TO 

AMERICAN H 




D 21 
N7 
Copy 1 



i 



N I VER 






Book. 






t 



GopyrightlJ^. 



COPYRIGOT DEPosrr. 



OLD WORLD STEPS 
TO AMERICAN HISTORY 



Old World Steps 
to American History 



BY 

HARMON Ba^VNIYER 

Author of "A School History of England' 




ATKINSON, MENTZER & COMPANY 

Boston New York Chicago Atlanta Dallas 



^^ 



^ 

^-^ 



Copyright, 1915, 

BY 

HARMON B. NIVER. 



APR 12 ISIo 

©CI.A397538 



PREFACE 

THIS book has been prepared by combining 
the author's two earlier vobames on " Great 
Names and Nations," Ancient and Modern. In 
the preface to the second volume it was stated: 

" The idea that first lessons in history should be 
given in chronological order, is one that has gained 
strength in recent years. This study as usually 
pursued in our elementary schools begins and ends 
with our own country — a method which leaves the 
children profoundly ignorant of the rest of the 
world, and gives them the most erroneous ideas 
of the relative age and importance of the United 
States." 

While a patriotic pride in the land of our birth 
is a most commendable quality, an arrogant self- 
sufficiency is as deplorable in nations as in men. It 
is highly desirable and entirely practicable to give 
children in our elementary schools, through story- 
telling and reading, some notion of the great actors 
in the world's history and of the beginnings of the 



great modern nations of which the United States is 
one. When the pupil has some understanding of 
" how the world has come to be known as we find it 
today," he is prepared to take up with fuller appre- 
ciation, the story of his own country. 

To furnish this background for the study of 
American history is the purpose of the present 
volume. Especial attention has been given to the 
great leaders in the world's history and to the rise 
of the nations contemporary with the United 
States. The migrations of mankind from the ear- 
liest ages, and the great inventions and discoveries 
which have shaped the history of the world, have 
also been made prominent. In short, it has been 
our purpose to fully conform to the spirit and 
letter of the new " Course of Study in History " 
for the public schools. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 



XII. 
XIII. 
XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 

XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 

XX. 
XXI. 



XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 

XXVII. 

XXVIII. 

XXIX. 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 

PAGE 

The Study of History 1 

The Chinese Republic 6 

Japan 19 

India 23 

Egypt 38 

Assyria and Babylonia 47 

The Phoenicians 56 

The Hebrews 59 

Media and Persia 63 

Greece 69 

Rome 107 

The Republic 120 

The Empire 140 

MEDIAEVAL HISTORY. 

The Barbarian Invaders 157 

Clovis 161 

The Beginning of England 166 

Mohammed and the Saracens 170 

The Empire of Charlemagne 181 

The Northmen 191 

The Norman Conquest of England 201 

The Crusades 209 

Beginning of New Nations 218 

The Revival of Learning 227 

MODERN HISTORY. 

The Search for the Indies 236 

Peter the Great and Russia 246 

People Against Kings 253 

The Settlement of New Lands 270 

The New German Empire 277 

How Italy Became One Nation 290 

The Turks 299 

The American Republics 307 



ANCIENT HISTORY 



I. THE STUDY OF HISTORY 

TVIIOSE COUNTRY IS THE BEST 

There is an old poem about four German kings 
who met together, and were boasting, each about 
the merits of his own country. 

" My land is great and powerful," said the 
Saxon king, " because of the treasures of silver, 
found in the deep mines among the mountains." 

" Behold my land," cried the king from the 
Rhineland; "its valleys are covered with golden 
harvests, and the vineyards on its hills yield the 
best of wine." 

" I have great cities and rich churches," cried 
Louis of Bavaria, " which make my land better 
than yours." 

Eberhard, the king of Wiirttemburg, then 
spoke : 

" My country has only small cities, and its 
mountains yield no silver. My greatest treasure 
is the love of my people." 

Then the other kings said to Eberhard: " Your 

wealth is greater than ours, and your country has 

the most costly treasure." 

1 



2 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

If I were to ask you what country you think 
the best, you would answer, like the German 
kings, " My own." The German loves his " Father- 
land," the Englishman his " Mother Country," the 
Frenchman, his " Beautiful France," the China- 
man, his "Flowery Kingdom," and the Japanese, 
his " Sunrise " Land. The country that we love 
most, is the best country. 

OLD COUNTRIES AND NEW COUNTRIES 

How shall we tell the age of a country? We 
speak of the " Old World," and the " New World," 
and of " Old Countries " and " New Countries." 
We say that Columbus " discovered the New World 
and the Indians who inhabited it"; but the New 
World was here and the Indians were here, thou- 
sands of years before Columbus came. 

The birthday of our own country was July 4, 
1776. It was on that day that the EngHsh colonies 
declared their independence of Great Britain and 
became a new nation. When a country separates 
itself from another country and begins a life of its 
own, we may call it a new country or a new nation. 
We call America the New World because a new 
race of people came into it and made it their own. 

Nations are like men: they are born, they grow 
up, and pass away. Some nations have been living 



THE 8TUDY OF HISTORY 3 

for thousands of years; others have lived only a 
few centuries, or a few years. 

IMMIGRATION 

Most countries of the world have been settled 
by people from older countries. Men are like cer- 
tain birds and animals ; they are migratoi^y , that is, 
they move from place to place in search of new 
homes where they can live more comfortably. Our 
country was settled by people from the countries 
of Europe, and people from these countries are 
still coming to America at the rate of about a 
million a year. When we study the history of the 
countries from which these people come, we find 
that Spain, England, France, Germany, and other 
countries of Europe, were themselves settled by 
people who emigrated from countries lying still 
farther east. 

Even the very oldest nations, the Chinese, the 
Japanese and the Hindus, have not always occupied 
the country where they now live. Their legends 
tell us that their ancestors came from some older 
country in Central Asia. The Greek and Roman 
legends also, say that the first people who came into 
Greece and Italy, once lived in Asia. Oh account 
of these stories it has been thought that the first 
home of the human race was somewhere in Asia; 
but the oldest nations of that continent have long 
since passed away and have left no records. 



4 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

WHERE THE STUDY OF HISTORY BEGINS 

Where, then, shall we begin our study of his- 
tory? We cannot begin with our own country, be- 
cause all of us or our ancestors have come from 
other countries across the ocean. We cannot begin 
with England, Germany, or France, because those 
countries were settled by people from older coun- 
tries. 

Let us think for a moment what history is. We 
may call it a stoi^y of the lives of nations. But in 
order to study such a story we must have books 
or records of some sort. Now, the oldest nations 
did not know how to write, and all that we know 
about them must be found out from the stories 
handed down from one age to another, or from the 
monuments and works which they left. We be- 
lieve that the oldest nations are those of Asia and 
of Northern Africa, but we do not know whether 
China or India or Egypt is the oldest nation still 
living. It will be convenient, however, to begin our 
study with the nations of Asia, because throughout 
the history of the world, men have moved from the 
east toward the west. 

WHY WE SHOULD STUDY HISTORY 

Why do you love your country? Perhaps it 
would be better to ask first " Why do you love 
your home? " Your home is a comfortable place in 



THE STUDY OF HISTORY 



which to Hve; it provides you with food, shelter, 
and the other necessities of life. Your parents 
provide for your wants, and do all they can for 
your comfort and happiness. We love our coun- 
try because it is a safe and comfortable home; be- 
cause it protects our lives and property; because 
it protects us in whatever part of the world we may 
happen to be. We love our country, too, because 
of the great deeds of those who founded it, and 
who built up its cities and its schools, who fought 
its battles, and who made it one of the great and 
powerful nations of the earth. 

If we study the history of our country, we shall 
love it more and we shall try to do all that we can 
to make it a better country. 



II. THE CHINESE REPUBLIC 

Though China was ruled by kings and em- 
perors for thousands of years, it has recently be- 
come a republic like that of the United States. 
During all their early history, the Chinese had little 
to do with the rest of the world, and the rest of 
the world knew very little about them. Occasion- 
ally a traveler from Europe would make his way 
into China, and on his return would have wonder- 
ful tales to tell about the wealth and splendor of 
that distant country and of the other countries 
through which he had passed. 

The Chinese have an ancient book telling of a 
voyage made across the Pacific Ocean in the fifth 
century, by one of their priests and his companions. 
The priest's name was Holi-shin, the first part of 
the name sounding much like our word whey. This 
company discovered a great country on the east side 
of the ocean, and called it Fusang, which was their 
name for a certain cactus plant that grows abun- 
dantly in Mexico. It is generally believed that the 
account of this voyage is true. Fusang may have 
been Mexico, including our State of California, or, 
possibly, it may have been Peru. But the Chinese 
seem to have made no use of their discovery of 
America, as the Europeans nlade of the discovery 
by Columbus, about a thousand years later. 

When the people of Europe had learned to 



THE CHINESE REPUBLIC / 

make long voyages by sea, they began to search for 
the rich countries of the East. Columbus was look- 
ing for China and the Indies, when he accidentally 
stumbled upon the New World. It was a long time 
before the Europeans made their way to China, and 
it was a still longer time before the Chinese would 
have anything to do with them. Of late years, 
however, China has greatly changed; or perhaps 
it would be better to say she has begun to change. 
She has adopted many of the ideas of Europe and 
America. She is building railroads, opening mines, 
and building factories. She has improved her 
schools and sends her young men and women to 
Europe and America to be educated in the mod- 
ern way. And as the greatest change of all, she 
has driven out her kings and established a govern- 
ment of the people, which we call a republic. 

OLD CHINESE CUSTOMS 

The Chinese ways of doing things are so differ- 
ent from ours that we think many of them ridicu- 
lous. But we must remember that thcij have the 
same opinion of owr ways. It seems strange to 
begin a book on the last page and read the lines 
up and down, but tliat is the way a Chinese book is 
made. 

In the schools the boj^s sit with their backs to 
the teacher; and when they study and recite their 
lessons, they shout as loud as they can. 



8 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

When a Chinaman meets a friend on the street 
he bows low and clasps his hands together, moving 
them up and down in front of him. If one should 
be on horseback or riding in a sedan chair or 
carriage, he must get down on the ground before 
speaking. If he wears spectacles he must take 
them off, for it is a great offense to a Chinaman 
to be looked at through glasses. If either should 
be too busy to stop he puts a fan before his face. 
This means, "In a hurry; can't stop today." 

When you call at a Chinaman's home be care- 
ful to keep a little ahead of him on entering and 
leaving, and to sit down at the same time with your 
host, because it is thought very impolite to sit 
when others are standing. During your call he 
will give you a cup of tea, using both hands. This 
you must receive in the same way; but do not 
'drink it until you are ready to go, for a Chinaman 
never drinks until he wishes to end his visit, and 
the host then expects him to go at once. You may 
inquire of a Chinese gentleman how many sons he 
has and how they are getting along at school, but 
if you should ask after his wife or daughters he 
would become your enemy for life. 

SOME AVISE OLD KINGS 

The Chinese are very proud of the great age 
of their country and of the wisdom of their kings. 



THE CHINESE REPUBLTC 



They call their emperor the " Son of Heaven," and 
their empire the " Celestial Empire." They believe 
that the world itself was made by a great giant, 
especially for Chinamen, and that they are the 
greatest and wisest people on the whole earth. 
They tell us that many, very many years ago the 
first Chinamen came from a far distant country. 
For a long time they led a wandering life, living 
in tents, until their first great king, Yu-Chau, led 
them into the land along the Yellow River and 
taught them to build huts from the boughs of 
trees. But they never forgot their tent life, and 
the Chinese house is still built to look like a tent. 

The next king was the wise Su-jin, who, like 
our Indians, found that he could kindle a fire by 
rubbing two dry sticks together. He also taught 
the people how to count the days, by tying knots 
in a string. Fo-hi found out the use of iron, and 
Chin-nung invented the plow. 

The next king was Hoang-ti. Hoang-^i means 
Yellow Emperor, just as Hoang-/zo means Yel- 
low River. This emperor divided the year into 
months and made the first calendar. He also built 
roads and ships. His wife, Se-ling, taught the 
people how to unwind silk cocoons and to weave 
the fiber into cloth. 

During the reign of Yao and Shun, the Yel- 
low River caused great destruction and death by 



10 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

overflowing its banks. The people call this river 
China's Sorrow, because of the millions that 
have been swept away by its floods. The next 
emperor, Yu, spent nine years in digging canals 
to drain off the waters. But the unruly stream 
refused to stay in its new channels, and from time 
to time, when the spring floods came, it would 
break over its banks, drowning people and carry- 
ing away their houses. 

The greatest of all the old Chinese kings was 
Che-Hoang-ti, who is sometimes called The Great. 
When he came to the throne there were a number 
of kings ruling in difl'erent parts of China who 
would not obey the Yellow emperors of the Middle 
Kingdom. But Che-Hoang-ti made war on them 
and united all their countries into one, which we 
now call the Chinese Empire. He was really the 
first emperor. 

North of China lived a fierce race of yellow 
warriors called Tartars. They began to break 
into Hoang-ti's country, killing the people and 
carrying ofl* their property. He gathered a large 
army and defeated the Tartars in many battles, 
driving them back into their own land. 

To protect his people against these robbers the 
emperor then began to build the Great Wall, which 
still stands on the northern border of China. 

When he was safe from all his enemies, Hoang- 
ti divided his empire into thirty-six provinces and 



THE CHINESE REPUBLIC 



u 



set a man over each to govern it. He then made 
a grand tour of his whole country. It had been 
the custom in China to keep in repair only those 
roads over which the kings traveled. But Hoang- 
ti said the people needed good roads as well as the 




The Great \Vall of China. 



king, and he caused all of them to be kept in good 
condition. 

We have one thing to tell about this emperor 
that is not so worthy of praise. He had made 
many changes in the religion and government of 
China that the learned men did not like. Wishing 
to gain their favor, he called them all together to 
a great meeting and explained to them why he had 
done these things. 

One man arose and said: " You, O king, are the 



12 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

greatest man of all time, and you have done more 
for the good of your country than all the kings 
that have lived before you." 

At this one of the learned men said: " That 
fellow is a vile flatterer, O king, and is unworthy 
of the position he occupies. What he has told you 
is not true; for in our books we read of kings that 
were far greater and wiser than you." 

You may be sure that this made Hoang-ti very 
angry. He declared that if such things were in 
the books he would destroy them, and that he would 
put to death any man who should ever speak of 
them again. Then he commanded that all the 
books in the Empire should be burned, saving only 
those which were written about farming, medicine, 
building, and astronomy. Four hundred and sixty 
of the learned men who would not obey him he 
buried alive in a great pit, and many more were put 
to death. 

But Hoang-ti and his men could not find all 
the books. Some were hidden away in secret 
places, and after his death they were brought out 
and printed again, so that many of the oldest 
Chinese books are still treasvired and read by the 
students and wise men of China. 

CONFUCIUS, THE CHINESE SAGE 

A sage is a wise man, and Con-fu'-cius, or 
Kung-Fu-tse, was the wisest Chinaman that ever 
lived. 



THE CHINESE REPUBLIC 13 

The names of persons, like everything else in 
China, are upside down. John Smith would be 
called Smith John, and Willie Jones, Jones Willie. 
Confucius belonged to the Kung family, and was 
named Fu-tse, or The Teacher. His father, Kung- 
Heih, who was a soldier and a judge, died when the 
little Confucius was only three years old, so that 
his mother brought him up. 

She sent him to school, where he astonished 
everyone by his knowledge. He became so famous 
that he w^as appointed to a public office at the age 
of seventeen. When his mother died, a few years 
later, he left his office and went into mourning for 
three years, as the custom is in China. After that 
he became a teacher of young men, for he thought 
he could do the most good in that way. So many 
came to learn of him that at one time he is said to 
have had 5,000 pupils. 

Once he was passing with his pupils through 
a field where a man was snaring birds. After 
watching for a while Confucius said to the man: 

"I do not see any old birds here. Where have 
you put them? " 

" The old birds are too wary to be caught," re- 
plied the hunter, " and the young ones which fly 
with them also escape. I can catch only those that 
fly by themselves, or that go in company with other 
young birds." 

"Do you hear that?" asked Confucius of his 



14 CK» w«Bij> 5Y5z^ r^:« amehcax hethikt 



The Toon^ luds escape onhr when ther 

In Has wsT he wtnU teach his piqMls to re s pe c t 
and obey tteir paifnts and teachos^ and also to fed- 
low Ike oU cnslims of ^!!^ i-fmitrT, si^ 

Confb*: _ ^ : -eventy-three 

te _ _ 'WTitiiigs 

f>f ^^ cfTT r H r ^ _ 3^>^ of 

H- — -:if B. £ :: Rires. --. 2 ■: : Jies, 

V izid Airr^ziz - These 

It 7 7 '^ just 

- T : _ _ :) Us 

7 : ~ :t t most of 

and 



■" Yes. -bat yoa 

wmldnot 7 ' :oyoa- 

Hoe;^: . dns: 

To see _._: _ ^ _ do it k to be a 

eowazd. 

He wi - . - Hr--- h-i^ zTt to 

whom be : 

T"'^ ' :^ -'- -low in his words and 

ear 

_ " iiig^ by Confocios 



THZ CHES-Z.-Z RZPTTBLIC 15 

was the duty of cfafldren to love and obey iixsr 
parents when alive, and to h<»0r and worship them 
after death. When a Chinaman does wronsr or 
changes the old ways he is thought to dishonor the 
memory of his parents, and there is no greater 
crime than this in China. 

HOW THE CHESTIiE CaAIZ TO wy ^R PIGTAILS 

Many years after Confucius and the great Che- 
Hoang-ti had passed away the yellow robbers of 
the Xorth came climbing over the Great Wall into 
China. The Emperor had brave soldiers to guard 
the wall and see that no one should cross it : but now 
the Tartars had grown very strong and the Chinese 
were not able to keep them out. Their king was 
called Gen'-ghis Khan, a name meaning Very 
flighty King. Genghis was one of the greatest 
generals that ever Hved. and he conquered all of 
central and southern Asia and killed millions of 
people. He did not hve long enough to subdue the 
Chinese, for they fought bravely. But his grand- 
son. Ku'-blai Khan, carried on the war until the 
Chinese were forced to yield. 

Their great leader. General Chang, escaped to 
Indo-China. where he raised a large lieet for a last 
attack on the Tartars. But it was caught in a terri- 
ble storm in the China Sea and Chang was drowned. 

Kublai Khan then became the first Tartar em- 
peror of China. He compelled every Chinaman to 



16 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

shave the top of his head and to braid the rest of 
his hair in a queue as a sign that he was the slave of 
the Tartars. 

Kublai Khan built the city of Pekin, which is 
still the capital of the Chinese Empire. The city 
was eight miles square and surrounded by a high 
wall. Within the outer wall was another city, six 
miles square, and within this still another, one mile 
square. In the inner square was the royal palace, 
containing dining halls for hundreds of guests, and 
there were hundreds of other rooms, made very 
beautiful with pictures and statues. The palace 
was surrounded by a park and a lake, where the 
king fished and hunted. Outside of the park the 
king kept his army of a hundred thousand men al- 
ways ready for war. Marco Polo, a traveler from 
Venice in Italy, once visited Kublai at Pekin and 
remained many years at his court. When he re- 
turned home he wrote an account of his visit. He 
told his countrymen all about the wonderful land 
of China, with its wealth of gold and jewels, and 
his stories made the people of Europe eager to visit 
the rich country. 

SOME CHINESE IN^^NTIONS 

The Chinese have made many useful inventions, 
some of which have been made also in other coun- 
tries. The people of Europe, for example, began 
to use the mariner's compass about the year 1300; 



THE CHINESE REPUBLIC 17 

but the Chinese understood the use of this instru- 
ment probably 2,000 years before that time. The 
art of printing also has been practised in China for 
several thousand years. It was discovered in Europe 
only in the time of Columbus. The Chinese were 
the first discoverers of the art of making gun- 
powder, but the only use they made of it was in 
celebrating festival days. This discovery was made 
in Europe about 2,000 years later by Roger Bacon 
It is interesting to note that the Chinese forbade 
the making of gunpowder when they found that 
it was dangerous to human life ; but when the peo- 
ple of Europe found that human life could be de- 
stroyed by the use of gunpowder, they were all the 
more eager to manufacture guns and rifles. 

One of the most useful discoveries of the 
Chinese was the art of reeling the fiber from the 
cocoons of the silk worm and of manufacturing the 
silk into cloth. When the people of Europe first 
saw Chinese silk, they thought that the fiber was 
obtained from some kind of plant. The Chinese 
kept the secret carefully, but it was eventually dis- 
covered by some travelers from Europe, who took 
home with them some eggs of the silk worm con- 
cealed in a bamboo rod. Thus the cultivation of 
silk was introduced into Europe. 

The Chinese discovered also the way to make 
porcelain and paper. All nations have found out 
how to make potter}^ of some sort, but the Chinese 



18 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

manufactured beautiful vases and other articles 
from clay several thousands of years ago. The 
Chinese made paper from rice straw and they now 
make many varieties of paper goods which are sold 
to all parts of the world. 



III. JAPAN 

We have no means of learning anything about 
the very early history of Japan. The Japanese 
learned the art of writing from China about 2,000 
years ago. Before that time there was no means 
of keeping records, and we have to depend upon 
what we can learn from the records of other nations. 
The Japanese stories of the early times tell us that 
the first Japanese came from somewhere in the 
western part of Asia. They tell us that their first 
king, whose name was Jimmu, began his rule about 
660 B. C. At that time the people believed that 
their ruler was descended from a god and that he 
became a god again after he died. 

The old religion of Japan was a worship of 
dead kings and heroes. The war god of old Japan 
is O'-jin, who was once a noted warrior. The Japa- 
nese take great pride in soldierly qualities. They 
are brave and hardy. They are very courteous and 
dignified in their intercourse with strangers. Every 
man is ready to fight and to give his life for his 
country in case of need. 

In the early times Japan was greatly troubled 
by the wars of rival kings and chiefs. It was like 
the condition of Germany in the Middle Ages, 
when the nobles were often stronger than the king. 

The warlike chiefs, or shoguns, at last got con- 
trol of the government, and the mikados retired to 

19 



20 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

private life. It was not until 1868 that they were 
restored to their old power and position. 

When the Tartars overran China and made 
themselves masters of that country, they tried also 
to take Japan. The Tartar emperor sent a great 
fleet in 1281 to make the conquest of the islands. 
But a tj'phoon, or fierce tropical storm, swept over 
the sea and completely wrecked the Tartar fleet. 

Gradually the Japanese established a feudal 
system. The shogun was the chief lord, and his 
vassals were called dai'-mi-os. They ruled over 
the various provinces, or divisions, of the empire. 
In 1889 a constitution was adopted, giving the 
people the right to vote and to take part in making 
laws. Japan is therefore now a constitutional mon- 
archy, like England or Germany. 

NEW JAPAN 

In 1855 the President of the United States sent 
Commodore Perry to Japan to make a treaty which 
would allow Americans to visit that country and 
trade with the merchants there. This was the first 
time that Japan consented to allow foreigners to 
come into their country. After the treaty was 
made we sent a Mr. Harris to Japan as minister. 

A minister is one who looks after a country's 
interests in a foreign land. Mr. Harris was re- 
ceived with great honor. Men were sent ahead to 
see that the road and bridges over which he must 



JAPAN 21 

pass were in order. People were asked to sweep 
the streets clean in front of their houses. And they 
were forbidden to gather in crowds to look at the 
procession, as this in Japan is not considered pohte. 

One of the mikado's palaces was given him 
to live in during his stay at the capital. Every 
street that he passed through and every place that 
he visited was selected beforehand, so that every- 
where he might receive every courtesy and kindness. 

The most wonderful thing about Japan is the 
quickness with which she learned the ways of 
civilized nations. For years she annually sent five 
hundred young men to England, France, Ger- 
many, and the United States. These young men 
remained in foreign countries to get an education. 
They studied the arn ies and navies of these coun- 
tries. They studied the laws, occupations, and the 
manufactures of the people among whom they 
lived. When they returned to their own land they 
taught their countrymen the best things they had 
learned. 

The Japanese soon began to make the articles 
that they brought from abroad. They learned to 
build their own war vessels, to make their own can- 
non, rifles, and ammunition. They drilled their 
soldiers after the German method, because they 
thought that the best. They built railroads and 
telegraph and telephone lines. During the yeais 
since Commodore Perry visited them, they 



99 



OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 



have made as much progress as other nations have 
made in two hundred years. 

They are called the Yankees of the East, be- 
cause they are so ingenious; they are called the 
French of the East, because they are so polite; and 
some one has called them the English of the East, 
because they are so persevering. They have taken 
to themselves all the good qualities of the other 
nations. 

In 1904-05 Japan engaged in war against 
Russia, because that country did not keep an agree- 
ment she made to take her armies out of China. 
Russia despised the Japanese, calling them yellow 
dwarfs. But in a few months the "dwarfs" sank 
all the war vessels that Russia had in that part of 
the world. By stubborn perseverance and skillful 
fighting they took from Russia the strong fortress 
at Port Arthur that Russia declared could not be 
taken. The Japanese defeated Russia's armies in 
many battles by their superior skill, and drove her 
out of China. Japan is now counted among the 
great nations of the world. 



IV. INDIA 

THE HINDUS 

North of India once lived a people who called 
themselves Ar'-yans, or the noble race. They 
kept cattle, sheep, and pigs. They also raised 
wheat, which they cut with a sickle and drew away 
in wagons with wooden wheels and axles. The 
women spun wool and wove it into cloth, and the 
men tanned the skins of animals into leather for 
shoes. They built canoes and skiffs in which they 
sailed upon the rivers, and for weapons they had 
spears and the bow and arrow. 

After a time the Aryans began to leave their 
country. Some climbed the snowy passes of the 
mountains and settled along the Indus River in 
northern India. There they found a dark-skinned 
people. They drove them out and took the land 
for themselves. They soon spread over the Indus 
valley and came to be called Hindus, or Dwellers 
on the Indus. Then they moved southward into 
the great plain of the Gan-ges, driving the native 
tribes across the hills into the Dec'-can, as the high 
plain in the south of India is called. 

There is an old collection of hymns from which 
we learn much about the Hindu religion. A favor- 
ite god was In'-dra, the god of rain. Without 
rain the crops fail, and the people die of hunger. 

23 



24 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Indra was thought to fight battles with the clouds 
and compel them to give forth rain. Agni was the 
god of fire, Soma the god of wine. 

After a time this simple worship became a 
wicked idolatry. Human beings were sacrificed in 
honor of idols. The chief gods became Brah'ma, 
the Creator; Vish'-nu, the Preserver, and Si'-va, 
the Destroyer. 

At O-ris'-sa there is a temple of the god Vishnu. 
At the yearly festival in honor of the god a great 
wagon containing the idol was drawn through the 
streets, and men and women would throw them- 
selves under the wheels and be crushed to death. 
They believed that this pleased the god, and that 
he would make them happy after death. 

The Ganges is regarded as a holy river, and the 
Hindus will travel hundreds of miles to bathe in 
its waters. 

The Hindus are divided into four great classes 
called " castes." The priests, or Brah'-mans, are 
the first, or highest caste. The soldiers and rulers 
form the second caste. The farmers and mechan- 
ics are the third, and the lowest caste is composed 
of common laborers. A man must always remain 
in the caste in which he was born and follow the 
business of his father. According to their belief, 
if he lives a good life his soul may pass at death 
into the body of an infant born into a higher caste, 
but if a Hindu does not remain in his caste and 



INDIA 25 

keep all the rules of his religion, then his soul may 
enter the body of an animal or of an insect, and 
thousands of years must pass before he can hope 
to again become a man. 

At the same time that Confucius was teaching 
the Chinese to return to the old ways of living, a 
man arose in India who opposed the foolish ideas 
of the Brahmans. 

This man was Prince Sidd-hartha, or Gau- 
ta'-ma, whose beautiful life, spent for the good of 
his fellows, is made familiar in our time by the pop- 
ular poem of Sir Edwin Arnold entitled "The 
Light of Asia." The story is legendary in its de- 
tails. It is interesting to note that Jesus of Naza- 
reth came, with His religion of love and purity and 
peace, almost midway in time between the gentle 
Gautama and the fierce conqueror JNIahomet. 

GAUTAMA BUDDHA 

Gau-ta'-ma was the son of a king in northern 
India. In later life he was called The Buddha, 
meaning the Enlightened One. His mother, 
]Ma'-ya, was thought to be the most beautiful 
woman in the world. She died soon after Gautama 
was born, and he was brought up by his aunt. You 
will not be surprised to learn that he was a very 
beautiful boy and that he soon became more 
thoughtful and wise than any of his playmates. 



26 (JLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

When he went to school his teachers soon found that 
he already knew more than they did. He could 
write from memory all the old hymns, and in arith- 
metic the}^ found that he could write numbers large 
enough to tell how many drops of water would fall 
upon the earth if it rained every day for ten thou- 
sand years. 

Gautama loved to be by himself. He would 
wander into the forest and stay all day lost in 
thought. 

He wanted to do something to help his fellow- 
men to be happy. He felt that he was in the world 
to do something, and not to lead a life of pleasure. 
His father would not allow him to see any un- 
pleasant thing. 

People who were old, sick, or poor were kept 
away from the palace. But one day when the 
prince was riding with a company of friends in a 
park, he met an old man, lame, wrinkled, gray- 
haired, tottering upon his staff. 

" Who is this man? " he asked of his servant. 

" Sir," replied the servant, " this man is old, 
his senses are feeble, his strength is gone, he is 
despised by everybody and left here to die. But 
such a fate is not for this man alone; your father 
and all your relatives and friends shall come to the 
same state, and there is no other end for living 
beings." 

"Alas! " said the prince, " why are we so proud 



INDIA 27 

of our youth, seeing that old age soon comes upon 
us? Coachman, turn the chariot quickly. What 
have I to do with pleasure? " 

Another day, going out again, they met a poor 
man suffering with fever. Farther on a funeral 
procession was seen bearing a body to the tomb. 
He again asked his coachman what these things 
meant, and learned that all men could become sick 
and die. Once more he met a tall, thin, stern- 
looking man, who told the prince that he had left 
his home and every pleasure; that he was living 
upon alms, wandering about trying to make him- 
self better. Gautama liked that kind of life, and 
one night he left his young wife and his beautiful 
palace and rode away into the forest. 

He met an old hunter and gave his beautiful 
garments of silk for the hunter's yellow coat made 
from the skin of a stag. He then sought a noted 
teacher who had a school of three hundred pupils; 
but he soon went away, for the priest could not tell 
him the things he wanted to know. He then heard 
of another still more famous teacher. But even 
that one could not tell him how to find happiness. 
He then went away by himself, and after long 
study he found out how to be happy. During that 
time we are told that many bad spirits came and 
tempted him to return to his old life. When they 
found he w^ould not do this, they came in great 
armies to kill him. and the rocks and spears which 



28 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

they threw at him were changed into flowers which 
formed in wreaths about his head. 

When Gautama, or Buddha, as he then called 
himself, was satisfied that he had found out the 
true religion, he wanted to teach it to others. Soon 
he had sixty followers. He sent them out as mis- 
sionaries to teach others. Buddha declared that 
the Brahmans played tricks upon the people to get 
their money. He said that the system of caste was 
wrong. " Between a Brahman and a man of an- 
other caste," said he, " there is no difference." This 
was good news to the poor Hindus. Thieves and 
robbers, beggars and cripples gathered around 
him. Mighty kings came also to confess their 
sins, and even many of the proud Brahmans con- 
fessed their ignorance before him. The sacrifices 
to the old idols were stopped. Beautiful churches 
were built for Buddha. They were open to all 
classes of people, men and women. Missionaries 
were sent to Ceylon, to Siam, to Burma, to Thibet, 
and to China, and many of the people in those coun- 
tries still hold to the religion of Buddha. 

ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND KING PORUS 

Many years after Buddha was dead, the Greek 
general, Alexander, set out to conquer the world. 
Alexander was King of Macedonia, and we shall 
hear about him in the stories of Greece. 



INDIA 29 

He had heard of the rich country of the Hindus 
along the Indus, and was eager to conquer them. 
In the eastern part of Af-ghan-is-tan' there is a 
deep valley across the mountains called " Khai'-her 
Pass." India, you know, is cut off from the rest 
of Asia by high mountains, and there are only a 
few passes by which travelers may reach it. Khai- 
ber Pass is the chief one, and many mighty armies 
have come that way to India. 

At the beginning of summer Alexander brought 
his army to Ca'-bul, and then came marching down 
Khaiber Pass into the Pun- jab, or " land of the 
five rivers." 

It was the rainy season, and the rivers were so 
swollen that he had a hard task to get his men 
across. The Hindus were astonished at the fear- 
less conduct of the Greeks and a good deal fright- 
ened by their dangerous-looking swords and spears. 
Several of the Hindu kings hastened to surrender 
to Alexander. But when he came to the river bor- 
dering the country of Porus, that king gathered 
an army of soldiers, horsemen, chariots, and ele- 
phants to keep him out. 

The war-elephants looked dangerous, and Alex- 
ander sent his soldiers to another place to cross. 
But Porus also sent his men to meet them, and the 
Greeks did not dare go into the water. 

At last Alexander ordered his soldiers to pitch 
their tents as though they meant to remain there. 



30 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

But in the middle of the night he took his bravest 
men and hurried up the river to a good crossing- 
place. Long before light they came upon the 
astonished Porus. The Hindu king and his men 
fought bravely, but they were no match for the 
Greeks. Porus was made prisoner and taken into 
Alexander's tent. 

" How do you wish me to treat you? " asked 
Alexander. 

" As a king," replied Porus. 

The Greek was so pleased with his brave fight 
and with his noble answer that he made him his 
friend and gave him back his kingdom. 

Alexander's men had grown weary of war, so 
they went sailing down the Indus to the sea, where 
they met their ships that were to take them back to 
Greece. 

THE MIGHTY MAH'-MOUD 

For many years after Alexander left India, 
Porus, his children, and grandchildren were left to 
rule in peace. But the Hindus were worshipers of 
idols ; and when people of the Mo-ham'-me-dan re-' 
ligion began to spread over Asia, they made war 
on every people who would not accept their faith. 

Mahmoud, King of Afghanistan, believed that 
God had commanded him to destroy all idols and 
idol-worship and to make all Hindus worship the 
one true God. Many of the idols were made of 
gold and silver, and the temples were stored with 



INDIA 31 

money and jewels. All this wealth Mahmoiid 
carried off to his own country. Mahmoud was a 
mighty warrior. Seventeen times he led liis sol- 
diers to victory in India. 

Once he heard of a very rich temple which stood 
near the sea in western India. As many as 300,- 
000 people worshiped the idol, which was made of 
pure gold. Every day the idol was washed with 
water brought from the holy river, the Ganges, 
a thousand miles away. It took two thousand 
priests and three hundred musicians to conduct the 
services of the temple. 

To reach the temple Mahmoud had to lead his 
army across a wide desert where there was no food 
or water. • Twenty thousand camels were loaded 
with water and provisions for the march. 

When he approached the temple a messenger 
came out to see him. 

" You and all your army will be instantly killed 
by our god," said he, " if you offer any disrespect 
to his temple." 

INIahmoud laughed loudly at this. " We will 
see about that to-morrow," he replied. But when 
he attacked the walls around the temple, the Hindus 
fought so bravely that it was several days before 
he broke through. 

At last he came in sight of the gold idol, an 
ugly-looking object over fifteen feet high. He 
hurled his spear at the idol's head and broke off 



32 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

the golden nose. Then the priests fell on their 
knees about him and cried, " We will load all your 
camels with gold if you will only leave us our 
god!" His friends urged him to do this, but 
Mahmoud said, " No; I have come to destroy idols, 
as God has commanded me." 

Then his soldiers threw their spears at the idol 
until they broke a great hole in its side. Out 
poured a glittering stream of diamonds, rubies, 
pearls, and emeralds, which had been stored in the 
hollow image. Besides this there were thousands 
of images of gold and silver in various parts of the 
temple, and Mahmoud carried away more wealth 
than he had gained in all his former wars in India. 

When this rich king came to die he had all his 
gold, silver, and jewels brought out of his treasury 
and put before him. All his army, elephants, cam- 
els, horses, and chariots passed in review. Then 
the king wept at the thought of never seeing any 
of his treasures again. He retired to his palace 
and a few days afterwards died. 

THE GREAT MO-GULS' 

Near the city of A'-gra, in India, stands a build- 
ing which is said to be the most beautiful in the 
world. It is the Taj Ma-hal', or royal tomb of the 
wife of the Shah Je'-han, the greatest of the Great 
Moguls. 

" But who were the Great Moguls? " you ask. 



INDIA 



The Moguls, or Monguls, were people of the 
yellow or Mon^go'-li-an race who conquered India. 
They drove out the descendants of Mahmoud and 
made DeF-hi their capital city. After that the 
Yellow Emperor of India, who lived at Delhi, 
was called the Great Mogul. The first Mogul in- 
vader was Ti'-mour, the Lame, or Tam-er-lane', a 
descendant of the Tartar, Genghis Khan, of whom 
we have read. His capital was at Sa-mar-cand', in 
Tur-kes-tan'. He was a very bloody warrior, and 
delighted to pile up the heads of his prisoners in 
front of the cities he conquered. When he took 
Delhi he made a great pyramid of 100,000 heads. 
Though he stayed only two weeks at Delhi, he 
caused greater destruction and suffering than any 
other invader. 

Many years after his death, Ba'-ber, the great 
grandson of Tamerlane, who ruled at Cabul, led 
his army into India and made himself emperor at 
Delhi. He was the first Great Mogul. 

Baber died before he could entirely conquer 
India, but his work was finished by another em- 
peror, Ac'-bar, who made himself ruler over the 
whole country. The Mogul emperors were noted 
for their great wealth and their splendid palaces 
and festivals. One of the finest holiday celebra- 
tions was held on the emperor's birthday. There 
was a fair at which all sorts of goods were sold, 
and processions were held lasting several days. A 



34 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN inSTORY 

splendid tent was erected for the emperor. There 
were rich hangings of silk embroidered with gold 
and precious stones. Each noble also had a rich 
tent. Several acres of ground were covered with 
silken carpets and rugs, where the court met to see 
the ceremonies. 

On the great day of the festival hundreds of 
elephants passed in review, having on their heads 
great golden plates set with gems, and covered 
with cloths of silk embroidered with gold thread. 
Next came thousands of horses and trained ani- 
mals — lions, tigers, rhinoceroses, leopards, and 
hounds. Then an enormous troop of horsemen, all 
glittering in cloth of gold, closed the procession. 

Then a great golden scale was brought out. On 
one side sat the emperor. The courtiers piled up 
gold, silver, gems, and curious ornaments on the 
other side until the mass balanced the weight of the 
emperor. All the treasures were then scattered 
among the crowd, and there was a mad scramble 
to get them. 

Many forts, towers, and tombs built by Acbar 
are still standing, but Jehan was the greatest 
builder; for, besides the Taj Mahal, he left pal- 
aces at Agra, and a mosque, or church, called 
the Pearl Mosque, on account of its whiteness and 
beauty. 

The throne on which Jehan sat was one of the 
wonders of the world. It was called the Peacock 



INDIA 



35 



Throne, because the back of it was formed by two 
peacocks with tails spread out. The beautiful col- 
ors of the plumage were shown by rubies, sapphires, 
emeralds, and diamonds, while just above them was 
perched a parrot carved from a single emerald. 
The framework of the throne was solid gold. The 




The Taj Mahal. 

throne was worth over thirty millions of dollars, and 
the jewelers of Shah Jehan labored seven years to 
build it. 

Nothing now remains of the throne except the 
marble base on which it stood; for a king of Persia 
captured Delhi and carried it away, and no one 



36 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

knows what became of it afterwards. The Moguls 
with all their glory, gold, and gems are gone for- 
ever, but the palaces, tombs, and monuments which 
they left are still the most beautiful structures in 
the world. 

HOW THE ENGLISH CAME TO INDIA 

Many tales of the rich Mogul Empire had been 
carried by travelers to the countries of Europe, and 
every sea captain was eager to find a way to that 
land. Many tried in vain. Columbus thought he 
had found India, but it proved to be a new world. 
At last a Por'-tu-guese sailor, Vas-co da Ga'-ma, 
reached Cal'-i-cut on the western coast. Then came 
the Dutch, the French, and the English. 

In 1600 the great queen, Elizabeth, gave a 
company of merchants permission to trade in In- 
dia. They were called the East India Company. 
This company built trading stations at Cal-cut'-ta 
and Ma-dras'. Many years afterwards there was a 
clerk in their employ at the Madras station named 
Robert Clive. Clive was noted for his courage. 
He once accused a young officer, with whom he was 
playing cards, of cheating. The officer held a pis- 
tol at Clive's head. 

" Make me an apology at once," he said, " or I 
will fire." 

"Fire away, then," answered Robert; "I said 
you cheated, and now I say it again." 



INDIA ^7 

The officer did not fire. 

At this time there was war between the French 
and the English. The French held Arcot, a city 
with a hundred thousand inhabitants. With only 
five hundred men Clive attacked the city and took it. 

As he came near the town a terrible thunder- 
storm arose. The natives were afraid to fight dur- 
ing the storm and soon surrendered. 

Clive was then besieged in the city by the 
French with ten thousand men. They had war ele- 
phants with iron plates on their heads, which were 
trained to butt against the gates to break them 
down. But Clive, although besieged for many 
weeks, drove all his enemies off and saved the town 
for the English. 

Soon after this there came terrible news from 
Calcutta. An Indian prince, Su-ra'-jah Dow'-lah, 
had captured the English garrison. He locked up 
146 of them in a narrow room, where all but 
twenty-three died of suffocation and thirst in one 
night. 

Clive determined to have revenge. He marched 
to Calcutta with 3,000 men. He defeated the 
Sura j ah, who had 30,000 men, in the famous battle 
of Plas'-sey, and thus made the English power 
strong in India. Since that time the English have 
conquered the entire country, and the King of 
England is Emperor of India. But he owes his 
throne to Robert Clive more than to any other man. 



V. EGYPT 

THE LAND OF THE XHE 

About the time that Confucius was teaching 
the Chinese to follow the good old ways of their 
fatliers. and Buddha was teaching the Hindus 
how to live better lives, an old Greek traveler 
was writing about the wonderful land of Egypt. 
'* Egypt." said he. " is the gift of the Xile.'' In 
that country it rains not more than once in a thou- 
sand years: but every smnmer the great river, fed 
by the rains of Central Africa, overflows its banks. 
All the country then becomes a great Like. The 
houses are surrounded by water, and the boys and 
girls go about barefooted, wading from place to 
place. 

When at last the waters go away, a thin l?yer 
of black mud is left spread over all the country. 
It was on this account that the country was called 
Kent, meaning black land. 

Year after year the Xile has been bringing 
down its layer of black mud. Every year the lake 
grows wider and the mud deeper, until now the soil 
of Eg^'pt is deep and rich, and cotton, corn, and 
wheat grow quickly and yield large crops to feed 
and clothe the people. 

Great dams are built to hold back the water, 

38 



EGYPT 



39 



and during the long dry seasons the farmers use it 
to water their gardens and fields. Without the 
river this rich land would be only a barren waste of 
sand, where neither plants nor animals could live. 




The Pyramids. 



Do you wonder that the old Greek traveler called 
Egypt the " gift of the Nile "? 

At the mouth of the river a great three-sided 
piece of black soil has been left. This is called the 
"Delta," because the Greek letter delta, or A, is 
three-sided. The Delta is the richest land in all 
Egypt. 



40 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Very long ago a company of people came into 
the Delta to live. They found it very easy to get 
food from the rich, black soil. They did not need 
to plow or cultivate. They sowed the grain in the 
soft mud, and it grew up and gave them a hundred 
bushels for one. These people were ruled over by 
kings. They built strong cities, with splendid tem- 
ples, monuments, and tombs. 

CHEOPS, THE PYRAMID BUILDER 

One of these cities was called Mem'-phis. It 
stood on the left bank of the Nile, and was 
once ruled over by a great king by the name of 
Che'-ops. 

Near Memphis is a wonderful pile of stone 
which is called the Great Pyramid. It covers as 
much ground as five city blocks, and is nearly 
twice as tall as the tallest building in our large 
cities. It is built of great blocks of hard, red stone, 
each one as large as a trolley car. The Egyptians 
must have been good builders, for each one of these 
stones was cut out in a quarry hundreds of miles 
up the Nile, and brought all the way to Memphis. 
Then they had some machinery for raising them 
high up in the air so that they might be built into 
the pyramid. 

For hundreds of years no one knew what the 
pyramid was for. As it was of no use to anyone, 
men began to take away the stone to make other 



EGYPT 



41 



buildings. But one day, when a workman was busy 
on the side of the pyramid cutting out a block of 
stone, a piece fell through an opening and rolled 
down inside the pyramid with a clattering sound. 




Obelisk and Ruined Gate to an Egyptian Temple. 



He called other workmen, and they found a 
long passage leading into the pyramid. Follow- 
ing this they came to three large stone rooms, one 



42 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN inSTORY 

of which had beautiful walls and ceilings made of 
a kind of marble polished until it shone like glass. 
In the middle of this room was a large stone coffin. 
There was no dead body within, but upon the walls 
was written in many places the name of Cheops. 
Then they knew that this king had built the pyra- 
mid for his tomb. 

There are seventy pyramids still standing along 
the Nile, but that of Cheops is the largest. Nearly 
all of them were meant to be the burial places of 
kings. 

The Egyptians were careful to preserve the 
bodies of their friends, for they thought that if the 
body should decay it could never be raised from 
the dead; so they embalmed it with oils and spices, 
and wound it with linen. Thousands of such em- 
balmed bodies are found in the tombs of Egypt. 
We call them " mummies," and some of them are 
so well preserved that they still look like the pictures 
and statues of the kings who once lived in them. 

It is said that Cheops employed a hundred thou- 
sand men for thirty years in building the pyramid. 
He seized the people and made them work as 
slaves, and even closed the temples in order that he 
might have all the money for his work. And after 
spending nearly all his life in building a tomb, his 
body was not buried in it after all. The people 
were so angry on account of his wicked deeds that 
they would not allow it to be placed there, and the 



EGYPT 43 

statues that he had made of himself they broke. 
The pieces of one of them have been found. 

THE SHEPHERD KINGS 

If you look at the map of the continents, you 
will see that Asia and Africa are joined together 
by a neck of land called the Isthmus of Suez. This 
isthmus is a green and delightful country, and 
was very attractive to the shepherds who tended 
their flocks among the dry hills of Par-es-tine. 
Sometimes a famine would compel the shepherds to 
go down into Egypt to buy food. The granaries 
of that country were always well filled, and there 
was plenty to sell to those who needed it. 

Once the shepherd tribes joined together and 
formed a kingdom called the Hit'-tite kingdom. 
One of their kings led them into Egypt, and they 
fought with the King of Memphis and drove him 
out. They then made Egypt their own country 
and lived there for two hundred years. 

It was in the time of these shepherd kings that 
the sons of Jacob went down to Egypt to buy corn. 
They found that their brother Joseph, whom they 
had sold as a slave, had become the chief officer of 
the Egyptian king. 

The Hittites were of the same race as the He- 
brews and felt friendly toward them. So King 
Pharaoh invited them into Egypt, and gave them 
the land of Goshen in which to live. 



44 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

ram'-e-ses the great and the hittites 

After a time the Egyptians drove the Hittite 
kings out of Egypt, but the Hebrews still remained 
in the land of Goshen. 

The Hittites had formed a new kingdom near 
the Red Sea. Rameses the Great had become King 
of Egypt, and he was afraid the Hittites were go- 
ing to attack his land again, so he made war on 
them. He defeated them in a great battle at 
Kadesh. A poet who wrote about the battle says 
that Rameses drove his chariot right through the 
Hittite army, scattering them right and left and 
killing many of them. The Hittites were so ter- 
rified that they tumbled one over another in their 
flight. 

When Rameses came back from Kadesh he 
rode through Goshen. 

" Who are these people that have these fine 
sheep and cattle? " he asked. 

He was told that they were Israelites, who 
had come into Egypt in the time of the Shepherd 
Kings. 

" Well," said Rameses, " there are more of them 
than there are of us, and some day they will drive 
us out of our own country, if we do not take care." 

" They belong to the same race as the Hittites," 
his servant told him, " and they have been kept 
hard at work, but, in spite of all that can be done 



EGYPT 45 

to keep them down, they become stronger every 
year." 

" Let them be divided into companies of a hun- 
dred each, and put an overseer at the head of each 
company," said Rameses, " and set them to making 
bricks. I am going to build a great wall to shut 
out these enemies of Egypt." 

The wall was built. It reached from the Nile 
near Memphis to the Med-i-ter-ra'-ne-an Sea, a dis- 
tance of ninety miles. 

Then the king built a canal from the Red Sea 
to the Nile. Along the wall and the canal he built 
" treasure cities." These contained great store- 
houses and forts, where food and supplies for war 
were kept. 

He had plenty of work for them, for he then 
decided to build a new capital in the Delta. He 
chose the treasure city Ta'-nis. There he built pal- 
aces, temples, and gardens, and made it the most 
beautiful place in the world. 

When Rameses had finished his wall and his 
cities he began to build temples. He finished the 
great temple of Kar'-nak, which his father, Se'-ti, 
began. The Hall of Columns in this temple is the 
most wonderful structure in the world. The col- 
umns are sixty feet high and twelve feet thick. 

On the outer wall of the Karnak temple is one 
of the most interesting things in Egypt. The 
treaty of peace which Rameses made with the Hit- 



46 



OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 



tites is carved there. This is the oldest treaty in 
the world. In some of the larger books about 
Egypt you may read it all. 

Whatever the Egyptians build is noted for 
great size. Rameses had a number of huge statues 
of himself carved out of the rock. Four of these 
stand in front of a great temple. Another, which 
is now broken, stood fifty-four feet high — as high 
as a four-story building. A beautiful obelisk 
which Rameses had placed in front of his temple of 
the sun now stands in a public square in Paris. It 
is eighty -two feet high and cut out of a single piece 
of pink granite. 




Ruins of a Temple of Rameses. 



VI. ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 

NATIONS THAT ARE DEAD AND BURIED 

If you turn to the map of the Ancient World 
and look in the southwestern part of Asia, you will 
find two rivers, called Ti'-gris and Eu-phra'-tes. 
These rivers join in the lower part of their course 
and flow into the Persian Gulf. Like the Nile, they 
overflow their banks in the rainy season and spread 
a rich, dark soil over the plains. 

Thousands of years ago people made their 
homes along these rivers, because it was very easy 
to get food. Wheat grew wild there, and when 
cultivated yielded large crops. Palm trees of 
many kinds were found, from which were obtained 
bread, wine, and fruit. The bark furnished a fiber 
for cloth, and the trunks, wood to build houses. 

The clay along the river banks, and pitch found 
in the lakes of the plains, were used to build temples 
and palaces. The clay was molded into bricks and 
baked in ovens. Often it was made into slabs and 
hollow cylinders, which when soft, were written 
over with curious wedge-shaped letters. They 
were then baked and became clay books, which last 
much longer than books made of paper. 

Rain seldom fell in this region, but the water 

47 



48 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

of the river was led through the land by a network 
of canals and used to moisten the growing crops. 

To-day this great river plain is almost a desert. 
The traveler sees a vast stretch of level country, 
with hundreds of mounds or hillocks of earth rising 
here and there. A few thousand wandering Arabs, 
living in small villages or tents, form the only 
population. 

Many years ago some curious travelers began 
to dig into these mounds, and made the most won- 
derful discoveries. They were found to be remains 
of cities, temples, and royal palaces built by the 
nations who lived there six thousand years ago. 
Three great nations, one after another, ruled in 
this land — Chal-de'-a, As-syr'-i-a, and Bab-y-lo'- 
ni-a. We can learn much about them from the 
Bible and from the books of old travelers. But we 
have learned far more from the clay books, the tem- 
ples, and carvings which have been dug out of the 
mounds. We know little about the very earliest 
people of Chaldea, as we call the southern half of 
the plain, except that they were of the Yellow race, 
and that they had a kind of picture-writing re- 
sembling that of the Chinese. The Bible tells us 
that Nim'-rod, the great-grandson of Noah and a 
mighty hunter, was the first settler in this countryc 



ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 49 

SARGON 

The first great King of Chaldea was Sar'-gon I. 
A clay cylinder tells a story about Sargon which 
reminds us of Moses. This cylinder was written 
by Sargon's son and ]jlaced in a temple. It says: 
" My mother put me in an ark of bulrushes and 
closed up the door with pitch. She threw me into 
the river." A water-carrier found the little Sar- 
gon and brought him up. 

Sargon was the founder of the first public libra- 
ries. He translated the books of the older race 
into his own language and placed them in these 
libraries for the people to read. 

These clay books contain stories of the gods of 
the Chaldeans, and prayers and hymns addressed 
to them. There are astronomies, geographies, his- 
tories, and arithmetics. There is a story of the 
Creation, of the Garden of Eden and the Tree of 
Life, of the Flood and the Tower of Babel, nearly 
as it is found in the Book of Genesis. There is a 
story of a great hero named Iz-du-bar", who per- 
formed twelve labors, reminding us of the story of 
Her'-cu-les. 

The Chaldeans were famous astronomers. As 
the land was level and the sky clear, it was easy for 
them to study tlie stars. They divided the year into 
twelve months, and the day and night into twelve 
hours each. They invented the weeks of seven 



50 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

days, the last day of each week being, hke our Sun- 
day, given to rest. The Chaldeans pretended to 
foretell events by a study of the stars. They in- 
vented weights and measures, made linens, muslin, 
and silk, engraved gems, and were the first to be- 
gin trade with other nations. Their gods were the 
heavenly bodies, the earth, and the waters. They 
also worshiped good and evil spirits, which they 
represented as monsters, part animal and part 
human. 

The Chaldeans were the wisest people of an- 
cient times, and much of their wisdom has come all 
the way down to us. 

Chaldea was at last conquered by the As-syr'- 
i-ans, a strong nation which had grown up in the 
northern part of the plain. Their chief city was 
Nin'-e-veh. But the Chaldeans were a peaceful 
people, devoted to useful occupations, while the 
Assyrians were cruel and warlike, giving all their 
energy to conquest and plunder. The cities they 
conquered were ruled with great severity, and the 
prisoners taken were often tortured and put to 
death. 

The palace of the Assyrian kings has been dug 
up from the great mound which contains all that 
is left of the city of Nineveh. In one room thou- 
sands of clay books were found, and cylinders which 
give accounts of the deeds of great kings. The 
carved walls of the palace show scenes in the life 



ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 



51 



of a monarch, such as the taking of a city, the tor- 
turing of captives, and the king on a Hon hunt. 

One clay cyhnder tells of another Sargon, who 
invaded Sa-ma'-ri-a and carried the ten tribes of 
Israel away into captivity. 

Sen-nach'-e-rib, the son of Sargon, made war 




An Assyrian King Hunting. 



on Hez-e-ki'-ah, king of Judah. 'The royal tab- 
let reads: "I took forty-six of his strong, fenced 
cities. . . . And Hezekiah I shut up in Jerusalem 
like a bird in a cage, building towers to hem him in, 
and raising banks of earth to prevent his escape." 
But a great calamity came upon the army of the 



52 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Assyrian, compelling him to retreat. The Bible 
tells us that one hundred and eighty-five thousand 
of his men died, '' smitten by the angel of the 
Lord." 

For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast, 
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed ; 
And the eves of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill. 
And their hearts but once heaved — and forever gi-ew still. 

And the widows of Asshur are loud in their wail. 
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal ; 
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord. 

sar-da-na-pa'-lus 

Another noted Assyrian king was Asshur-bani- 
par, or Sar-da-na-pa'-lus, as he was called by th( 
Greeks. He was the king who decorated the walL^ 
of the palace at Nineveh with the scenes of his bat- 
tles. He was a swift and terrible warrior, and did 
really, as he says, " break his enemies into pieces " 
and " level their cities with the ground." He built 
splendid palaces and made great collections of 
books. After being buried for two thousand five 
hundred years, .his library has been dug up, and 
we have learned much from it about Chaldea and 
Assyria. 

NEB-U-CHAD-NEZ'-ZAR 

After seven centuries of Assyrian rule, Chal- 
dea, or Babylonia, as the later nation was called. 



ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 53 

rebelled and became independent. Under Neb-u- 
chad-nez'-zar it joined with the king of Media, and 
destroyed the city of Nineveh. This king was the 
Napoleon of ancient times. He conquered every 
kingdom from the Za'-gros mountains to the Medi- 
terranean Sea. He captured Jerusalem, put King 
Zed-e-ki'-ah to death, burned the beautiful temple 
of Solomon, and carried away all the people of any 
note to Babylon, where they remained for seventy 
years. 

But his greatest work was the rebuilding of the 
city of Babylon. The new city was ten miles 
square, surrounded by a wall eighty feet high, of 
vast width, and surmounted by two hundred and 
fifty towers. On each of the four sides of the city 
were twenty-five gates of brass. Outside the wall 
was a broad and deep ditch, filled with water. The 
Euphrates river ran through the middle of the city. 
There were many wharves on each side of the river. 

The streets were laid out straight, and beautiful 
green fields, gardens, and parks were frequent. 
The king's palace, and the Hanging Gardens near 
it, excited the wonder of every traveler. The 
Hanging Gardens were built by Nebuchadnezzar 
to please his queen, A-my'-tis. A series of square 
platforms, each smaller than the one below it, were 
supported on stone arches. The whole structure 
sloped upward like a pyramid^ and rose to the height 
of seventy-five feet. Each platform was filled 



54 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

with earth, and planted with trees and flowers, so 
that the whole structure looked like small moun- 
tains covered with plants. Thus it reminded Amy- 
tis of the green hills of her own country, Media. 
The palace and Gardens were inclosed by a wall 
three miles in circumference. 

The great temple of Bel, the chief Babylonian 
god, was another wonderful building. It was a 
quarter of a mile in length and breadth. A stair- 
way wound around the outside of the temple to the 
top. Each stage or story became smaller as you 
ascended. There were, in all, seven stories, each 
sacred to one of the seven heavenly bodies that were 
known to them. 

In the midst of his beautiful city, in the royal 
palace, Nebuchadnezzar stood one day listening to 
an explanation of a dream by the Hebrew captive, 
Daniel. " Thou shalt be driven from men, and thy 
dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. 
Wherefore, O king, break off thy sins by right- 
eousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy 
to the poor." But the proud king replied: " Is not 
this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal 
dwelling place, by the might of my power, and for 
the glory of my majesty? " 

And in the same hour a disease came upon the 
king which drove him from among men, and he 
" ate grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the 
dew of heaven." 



ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 55 

A few years later Babylon was taken by the 
Persian king, Cy'-rus, who entered the city at night 
by turning the Euphrates out of its course and 
marching through the bed of the river. 

The last king, Bel-shaz-zar, was giving a ban- 
quet to his lords that night, and the city was given 
up to feasting and song. The Persians found the 
river gates unguarded, and their army reached the 
center of the city before being discovered. 



VII. THE PHOE-NI'CIANS 

Phoe-ni'-cia was a little strip of seacoast north- 
west of Par-es-tine, along the Med-i-ter-ra'-ne-an 
Sea. The people who lived there were Ca'-naan- 
ites, who had come into the land from the East long 
before A'-bra-ham left Haran (p. 59). 

The rough, rocky soil did not tempt the Phoe- 
ni'-cians to become farmers; but the great blue 
waters before them, and the splendid cedar forests 
which covered their mountains, made them the first 
sailors who ever sailed out of sight of land. 

They were good workmen, too. We shall read 
how they were employed by King Solomon to build 
the temple at Je-ru'-sa-lem. They could work 
metals, make glass and cloth, and cut jewels. It is 
said that some shipwrecked Phoenician sailors once 
built a great fire on a sandy shore where there were 
many shells ground up by the waves. Shells are 
made of lime. The fire melted the sand and lime 
into glass, thus teaching the sailors how to make 
this very useful article. The Tyr'-i-an purple 
was a rich cloth famous all over the world. The 
purple dye was obtained from a small shellfish that 
was found along their coast. 

To obtain metals for their workmen, they sailed 
into every part of the Mediterranean and Black 
seas, and even out into the Atlantic Ocean to Gaul 

56 



THE PHOENICIANS 57 

and Britain. They brought gold and silver from 
Spain, copper from Cyprus, and iron and tin from 
Britain. They brought pearls from the East, lions' 
and panthers' skins from Africa, linen from Egypt, 
and perfumes and spices from Arabia. They made 
all these into useful articles, and sold them in all 
parts of the world. 

The Phoenicians had colonies along the coasts 
where they traded. Cadiz, in Spain, and Carthage 
are two of their famous colonies. Being mer- 
chants, they had to have some way of writing and 
of keeping accounts. In order to do this, they ob- 
tained in Egypt twenty-two of the picture-letters 
of the priests. These they changed into letters like 
ours, and gave each letter a name. This alphabet 
they taught to all nations with whom they traded. 
And so it happened that the Greeks and Romans, 
the Germans, and the people of Spain and France, 
received a knowledge of writing. 

Almost the only king of Phoenicia whose name 
has come down to us is that of Hiram, who is men- 
tioned in the Bible. Althovigh these people in- 
vented the alphabet, they wrote no books, and so we 
know little about them. Of Hiram we only know 
that he was Solomon's friend and furnished him the 
materials to build the temple. 

The ships and sailors of Phoenicia carried goods 
for nearly every nation of ancient times. They 
carried timber to Assyria and Babylonia to con- 



58 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

struct the palaces of kings. When Xerx'-es wanted 
to bridge the Her-les-pont, to carry his armies into 
Greece, it was the Phoenicians who furnished the 
boats for the bridge. The King of Egypt hired 
their sailors to find a route around Africa by sea. 
After a voyage lasting 'several years, they sailed 
their ships out of the Red Sea and back through 
the Mediterranean to the mouth of the Nile. 

After many centuries the Phoenician nation 
was conquered by the Greeks and Romans, and 
died out. Nothing but tombs and a few ruins re- 
main. But we will remember them on account of 
the alphabet, for no invention has done so much 
good to the nations of the world as this. 



VIII. THE HEBREWS 

About f(3ur thousand years a^o, when Chaldea 
was yet a great kingdom, one of the descendants of 
Shem left his native city of Ur, in Chaldea, and 
moved with his family into the desert to the wxst. 
His name was Te'-rah, and he made his home at 
Ha'-ran. There he died, and his son Abram came 
into possession of all his goods. 

Abram became tired of life in the desert. He 
had heard of a fertile land farther west, nearer the 
great sea. 

Once he heard a voice speaking to him and tell- 
ing him to leave Haran with his family and goods. 
The voice told him that he should have many de- 
scendants, and that his name should be changed to 
A'-bra-ham, which means " father of nations." 

So Abraham began to lead a wandering life. 
He went westward into Ca'-naan, as the country 
between Babylonia and Phoenicia was then called. 
This country was the home of wandering tribes, 
who lived in tents and moved from place to place 
to find grass for their cattle and sheep. 

Abraham's family and servants soon became 
such a tribe. They were called Hebrews, a word 
meaning " from the other side," because they came 
from the other side of the Euphrates River. For a 
long time he lived at Shec'-hem, on the w^est of the 

59 



60 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

river Jordan. Once, in a time of famine, he went 
into Egypt to live. He soon became very rich in 
flocks and herds. 

At last he died, and his son, Isaac, became 
chief of the Hebrews. When Isaac died, his son, 
Jacob, became the head of the tribe. Jacob had 
twelve sons. Joseph was the youngest, and his 
father loved him so much that the older brothers 
became jealous. Once, when Joseph was sent to 
them with a message, they seized him and sold him 
to a company of traveling merchants. The mer- 
chants took him to Egypt and sold him to Pot'-i- 
phar, the chief servant of the king. Joseph was so 
honest and faithful that he became the chief ser- 
vant of Pharaoh, the Egyptian king. 

When Jacob had become old another terrible 
famine came into the land of Canaan. He sent his 
sons into Egypt to buy food. They were brought 
to Joseph, and he knew his brothers, although they 
did not know him. 

After a time Joseph brought his father, his 
brothers, and their families into Egypt to live — 
seventy-two persons in all. He gave them homes 
in Goshen, a fertile region north of the Red Sea. 

THE HEBREWS LEAVE EGYPT 

For many years the Hebrews continued to live 
in the land of Goshen; but at last the King of 
Egypt began to treat them as slaves and oppressed 



THE HEBREWS 61 

them in many ways. In order that they might not 
become too numerous, he caused all the male chil- 
dren to be killed. Of course, this order was not 
carried out. One of the little ones that escaped 
was adopted by the king's daughter and grew up 
as a prince in the king's court. His name was 
Moses, and he afterwards led the children of Israel 
out of Egypt into the wilderness, where they re- 
mained wandering back and forth for forty years. 

After the death of JNIoses, Joshua became the 
leader of the people. They invaded the land of 
Canaan, took possession of it, and divided it among 
the twelve tribes. For 200 years, the tribes were 
governed by judges; but at last, so many enemies 
appeared and the people became so rebellious, that 
a king was chosen to rule over them. 

The first of the Hebrew kings was Saul. He 
was a brave soldier and defended the country 
against its enemies, but he disobeyed the commands 
of God, and the prophet, Samuel, was commanded 
to choose a new king. 

The new king was David, who became the great- 
est of the kings of the Hebrew people. He con- 
quered their enemies, and established his capital at 
Jerusalem. He built many cities and traded with 
the Phoenicians, who lived along the ^lediterranean 
Sea. He collected vast quantities of gold, silver, 
and cedar wood to build a great temple at Jeru- 
salem. His son, Solomon, who succeeded him. 



62 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

built the temple, which was one of the most beau- 
tiful buildings in the world. 

After the death of King Solomon, the land was 
divided into two kingdoms. This made the people 
weaker, and they fell a prey to the kings of Assyria 
and Babylonia. Finally, in the days of the Romans, 
the Hebrew kingdom was utterly destroyed, and 
the country became a Roman province. 



IX. MEDIA AND PERSIA 

In the highlands east of the Ti'-gris River lived 
two nations, the Medes and the Persians. They 
were of the Aryan branch of the white race, and 
had come from the region of Bac'-tri-a, along the 
Oxus River. We have read of a Median princess 
who became the queen of Nebuchadnezzar, and of 
a Persian king who took the Bab'-y-lon-i-an king- 
dom under Bel-shaz'zar. 

The Medes at first ruled over the Persians, but 
when Cy'-rus became King of Persia he conquered 
the Medes and founded the Persian Empire, the 
greatest nation that had yet appeared in the world. 

The first great king of the Medes was Cy-ax'-a- 
res. We have read in the story of As-syr'-i-a how 
he joined with Nebuchadnezzar and destroyed Nin'- 
e-veh and its last king, Sar-da-na-pa'-lus. It is 
said that Sardanapalus heaped all his possessions 
together into a great heap, and when the Medes 
and Babylonians burst into his city he set fire to it 
and died in the flames. 

As-ty'-a-ges, the son of Cyaxares, was the next 
King of ^ledia. 

CYRUS THE GREAT 



The Greek traveler and historian, He-rod'-o-tus, 

63 



tells the story of how Cyrus became king 



64 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Astyages had dreamed that his daughter, Man- 
da'-ne, would bring trouble to his kingdom, so he 
married her to a Persian chief, Cam-by'-ses, and 
sent her out of his country, hoping thus to avoid 
any trouble she might cause him. When her son 
Cyrus was born, Astyages dreamed again that the 
child would one day become King of Media instead 
of him. He consulted his wise men, and they ad- 
vised him to kill Cyrus. He invited his daughter 
to bring the child to his court. He then sent for 
Har'-pa-gus, one of his chief nobles, and gave him 
the baby in a basket, ordering him to put it to death 
and bury it. 

But Harpagus, fearing to bring trouble upon 
himself, called in one of the king's herdsmen, to 
whom he gave the child. He told the man what 
the king had commanded, and directed him to ex- 
pose the child upon the mountains. " After it is 
dead," said Harpagus, " send for me, and I will 
send one of my trusted servants to see the body, 
that I may be sure the king's will has been carried 
out." 

The herdsman took the little Cyrus to his home, 
and told the story to his wife. It happened that 
her own baby had just died, so she put the dead 
child in the basket, and brought up Cyrus as her 
own son. 

When Cyrus was ten years old he was one day 
playing with the other boys of the village a game 



MEDIA AND PERSIA 65 

which they called " choosing a king." One of their 
number was made king. The king would then 
choose his officers and give them various duties to 
perform. On the day that Cyrus was chosen, one 
of the boys, who was the son of a nobleman of the 
court, refused to obey the orders of the cowherd's 
son. Whereupon Cyrus, in true Persian fashion, 
had him tied up and beaten with rods. The noble- 
man complained to King Astyages of the treatment 
his son had received, and the cowherd and his sup- 
posed son were summoned. Astyages recognized 
the royal boy, and compelled the herdsman to tell 
the whole story. 

When he asked his wise men what he should do 
with Cyrus, they told him that when the boys made 
Cyrus king his dream had been fulfilled, and that 
there was no further danger. So Astyages sent 
him back to his parents in Persia. 

But the king was terribly enraged at Harpagus, 
who had failed to carry out his commands. In his 
anger, he actually seized a young son of Harpagus 
and cruelly killed him. The king then told Har- 
pagus what he had done. 

" Whatever the king does is well," said Harpa- 
gus ; but in his heart he began planning revenge. 

The Persians had long been weary of the rule 
of Media, and when Cyrus had grown to manhood 
it seemed a good time to rebel. Harpagus now 
saw a good chance to get revenge upon King Asty- 



66 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

ages for the murder of his son. He sent a secret 
message to Cyrus, urging him to gather his soldiers 
and attack Media. " The army of Astyages," he 
said, " will desert to your side." Astyages heard 
that Cyrus was raising men, and sent an invitation 
to visit him at Ec-bat'-a-na, his capital city. " Tell 
him," said Cyrus to the king's messenger, " that I 
will be there when he is ready to receive me." 

Astyages did not suspect Harpagus, and had 
put him in command of his army. When Cyrus 
advanced into Media, Harpagus deserted with his 
men and joined the Persians. Astyages was made 
prisoner, and Cyrus became the king of the Medes 
and Persians. 

DARIUS 

The next great king was Da-ri'-us. He was the 
first king of a new family. That no one should 
ever be in doubt as to his race, he had this inscrip- 
tion cut on his tomb: " Darius, the great king, the 
king of kings; the king of all inhabited countries; 
the king of the great earth far and near ; the son of 
Hys-tas'-pes, a Persian, the son of a Persian; an 
Aryan, of Aryan descent." 

Darius made peace everywhere. Then he built 
great roads throughout his empire, all leading to 
Susa, his capital. He coined new money for the 
empire. At Be-his-tun', in Persia, he made smooth 
the face of a lofty rock, and had carved upon it an 



MEDIA AND PERSIA 67 

account of all his deeds, in three languages, in the 
old picture-writing of Chaldea. It has been the 
chief means of helping us to learn this strange 
language. 

Having secured j^eace within his empire, by put- 
ting down a number of small rebellions, Darius then 
set out to conquer new lands. There were still two 
countries where the Persian armies had not reached 
— India on the east and Greece on the west. The 
king was especially angry with the Greeks, for 
wlien he sent envoys there to demand earth and 
water as a sign of submission, the A-the'-ni-aiiS ana 
Spar'-tans threw his messengers into wells head 
foremost, and bade them " help themselves to earth 
and water." 

The army which he sent into India was victori- 
ous, and the whole northwestern part of that coun- 
try was added to Persian rule. The story of his 
attacks upon Greece, and of his son, Xerxes, w ill be 
told in the chapter on Greece. 

The religion of the Persians was the worship of 
one god, whom they called Or'-mazd. They be- 
lieved also in a bad spirit, whom they called Ah'-ri- 
man. After a time new religion teachers, called 
JNIagi, appeared, who taught the worship of the 
Sun, or of fire. The descendants of the fire-wor- 
shipers are found today in India, and are known 
as Parsees'. Zo-ro-as'-ter was the great prophet, 
or religious teacher, of the Persians. He lived in 



68 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Bac-tri-a before the race emigrated to Persia. His 
book of religion is called the " Zend-Aves'-ta," and 
still exists. Deceit of every kind was hateful to the 
Persians, and contrary to their religion. He-rod'- 
o-tus says they taught their boys three things: *' to 
ride, to shoot with the bow, and to speak the truth." 



X. GREECE 

Greece consists of the most southern penin- 
sula of Europe. It is a small country, but in early- 
times it was divided into twenty-four little states, 
each one managing its own affairs. 

The coast line is very ragged, with many inlets 
and bays. This made it easy for ships to sail to 
any part of the country. Then there were hun- 
dreds of little islands, which stretched away across 
the sea to the shore of Asia. You will see why it 
was that the Greeks soon became the most famous 
sailors in the world. They became the rivals of 
the Phoe-ni'-cians, and, in the end, took their place 
as the leading merchant people of the world. 

In the early days the Greek states had kings: 
but the people finally put down their kings, and car- 
ried on the governments themselves. The Greeks, 
like the JNIedes and Persians, were of the Aryan 
branch of the white race. In early times, of which 
we know but little, they had wandered westward 
along the northern shore of the Black Sea into 
Greece. The name Greek was not used by them. 
They called themselves Hel-le'-nes, and their coun- 
try Hel'-las. These words come from the name 
Her-len, the ancestor from whom all the Greeks 
were thought to be descended. 

We are very uncertain as to just what happened 
in Greece before 776 b. c. At that time writing 
began; but the Greeks had lived in their country 

69 



GREECE 



71 



at least a thousand years before. All that we 
know of this early period is found in the poems 
of Homer and He'-si-od, who recited their poems 
about one hundred years before the first records 
were made. 




A Wall Built by the Early Inhabitants of Greece. 

Hesiod tells about the creation of the world 
and the birth of the gods, and Homer tells of the 
great deeds of the early heroes. 



TIEE GODS OF GREECE 

Hesiod tells us that first in order of time came 
Cha'-os, or Confusion. Out of Chaos came Heaven 
and Earth. The children of Heaven and Earth 



72 



OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 



were the Titans, or giants, the Cy'-clops, and 
the Cent-i-ma'-nes, or hundred-handed tieings. 

Cro'-nos, a Titan, 
married R h e ' a. 
Their children were 
Hes'-ti-a, De-me^- 
ter, He'- re, and 
three sons, Ha'-des, 
Po-sei'-don, and 
Zeus. We are better 
acquainted with 
these deities under 
their Latin names — 
Ves'-ta, Ce'-res, Ju'- 
no, Plu'-to, Nep'- 
tune, and Ju'-pi-ter. 
Jupiter and his 
brothers engaged 
in a war against 
their father. A 
desperate struggle, 
lasting ten years, 
followed, in which 
all the gods, god- 
desses, and Titans 
took part. Jupiter 
and his followers 
occupied Mount O-lym'-pus, while Cronos and 
his Titans stood on Mount Oth'-rys. Crags and 




Ulysses Bending His Bow, 



GREECE 



73 



mountains were hurled back and forth. The noise 
and thunder of the battle caused the distant ocean 
to boil, and all nature was in confusion. 

Finally, Jupiter, aided by his thunder and hght- 




Wars of the Gods and Titans. 

ning, conquered. These terrible weapons were fur- 
nished him by the Cyclops (round-eyed), whom he 
had released from their gloomy prison, Tar'-tar- 
us, under the earth, where Cronos had imprisoned 
them. Cronos and his Titans were then thrust 



74 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

down there instead, to remain forever. Neptune 
built a great wall of brass around them, and the 
hundred -handed giants were placed on guard in 
front of the entrance. 

Jupiter had many wives. A-poF-lo and Diana 
were his children. JMinerva, the goddess of wis- 
dom, sprang full-grown from his brain. He mar- 
ried Ma'-ia, the daughter of At-las, and their son 
was Mer-cu-ry. His last and permanent wife was 
Juno, and their children were Mars, the god of 
war, and Vul-can, the divine mechanic who made 
armor and weapons for the gods and heroes. Ve'- 
nus, the goddess of love, sprang from the foam of 
the sea near the island of Cyth'-e-ra. 

Thus we have the twelve great gods and god- 
desses who lived on Mount Olympus and ruled the 
world. Besides these twelve there were many 
other divinities of less importance, such as the 
Muses, the Fates, the Graces, the Dry'-ads of the 
woods, and the nymphs of the streams and foun- 
tains. Then came the Har'-pies, the Gor'-gons, 
the three-headed dog Cer'-be-rus, the Hy'-dra, the 
Cen'-taurs, the Sphinx, the winged-horse Peg'-a- 
sus, and a hundred others. Death, Strife, Sleep, 
I^aw, and similar objects, were often looked upon 
as divine persons. 

The deeds of the heroes are the first things we 
read of in the story of Greece. For this reason we 
call the early times '' the heroic age." Every city 



GREECE 



75 



and village had its hero, whose deeds were told in 
song and story. Some heroes became so famous 
that their renown spread throughout Hellas. Such 
were Ja'-son, Her'-cu-les, A-chil'-les, The'seus, and 
Ulysses. Then there were great adventures in 




Jupiter. 

which many heroes took part. The most noted of 
these were the Ar-go-nau'-tic Ex-pe-di-tion in 
search of the golden fleece, The Trojan War, The 
Seven against Thebes, and the Cal-y-do'-ni-an 
Hunt. These stories were told over and over in 



76 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

old Greek poems. Ulysses, or Odysseus, is the hero 
of the famous "Odyssey" of Homer. 

After the return of the Greeks the Heroic Age 
of Greece came to an end. Instead of myths we 
find history. The Greeks had already received the 
alphabet from the Phcenicians, and they began to 
make a record of the leading events in each state. 

LEAGUES, ORACLES, AND GAMES 

In the days of the heroes it was believed that 
the gods and goddesses came down to earth and 
talked with men. But in later times it was thought 
that they chose certain places where they spoke 
through a priestess. 

Such places were called " oracles," and the mes- 
sage which the gods gave was also called an 
" oracle." 

The god Apollo was especially the one who re- 
vealed the future. There were about twenty of 
his oracles scattered through Greece, and a smaller 
number of those of Jupiter. 

When one wished to ask a question of an oracle, 
a gift had to be made for the support of the temple. 
The priestess would then listen to the question, and 
after several days of fasting and ceremony she 
would write the answer. 

The oracle of Apollo at Del'-phi was the most 
noted in all Greece. There a temple was built over 
a cleft in the rock, through which a gas arose out 



GREECE 77 

of the earth. The priestess sat on a stone over this 
cleft and breathed the gas. It was then that the 
god was thought to tell her how to answer the 
questioner. 

The Greeks had the greatest respect for the 
oracles. After a time there was much money 
stored in the temples, made up of the gifts which 
had been brought by those who came to inquire c^f 
the oracles. 

As it was necessary to protect these treasures, 
the cities in the neighborhood of an oracle formed 
unions to keep the oracle free and to protect t)ie 
temple. The most important of these unions was 
that of Delphi. Men chosen from each state in 
this league formed a council, and important ques- 
tions were decided by them. Often they could stop 
wars. 

In case of a war they would not allow any town 
in the union to be destroyed, or the running water 
cut off. They built good roads leading to the tem- 
ple, and protected all those who traveled thereon. 
Thus the oracles and unions were a means of keep- 
ing the cities friendly to one another, and of unit- 
ing them against enemies. 

Another important thing in Greek life was the 
Sacred Games. The Greeks thought that the souls 
of the dead were pleased by the same things that 
they had enjoyed in life. So games were held, 
such as boxing, leaping, running, and wrestling, 



78 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

near the tombs of their heroes. After a time these 
games were held in the honor of the gods. 

The most important of the Sacred Games were 
those held at O-lym'-pi-a, every four years, in honor 
of Jupiter. There was a splendid temple at Olym- 
pia, and the statue within it, called the Olympian 
Jupiter, was one of the wonders of the world. 

The first games were held in 776 B.C.; the sec- 
ond in 772 B.C. This period of four years was 
called an O-lym'-pi-ad. The Greeks reckoned time 
by Olympiads. They would tell you, for example, 
that Co-roe'-bus won the foot-race in the first year 
of the first Olympiad. 

Greeks from every part of the world attended 
the Sacred Games. During the games no war or 
military expedition could be begun. The victors 
in the sports received the highest honors and rich 
rewards from their native cities. The reward 
given in the field was a simple wreath of laurel, or 
olive, twined about the head. 

After a time it was the custom for poets and 
historians to bring their best writings to read at the 
games. A kind of fair was also held, where mer- 
chants sold or exchanged their goods. All this 
made the Greeks more friendly one to another, and 
prevented many quarrels. 

Besides those at Olympia, Sacred Games were 
held at Delphi, in honor of Apollo ; at Cor'-inth, in 
honor of Nep'-tune; and at Ne-me'-a, in honor of 
Jupiter. 



GREECE 79 

ATHENS AND SPARTA, AND THEIR LAWGIVERS 

After the return of the Greeks from the Trojan 
War there was a great deal of confusion in Greece. 
This was caused by many people changing their 
homes. 

There were four branches of the Greeks: the 
Do'-ri-ans, I-o'-ni-ans, ^-o'-li-ans, and A-chse'- 
ans. The Dorians moved south into the Pel-o- 
pon-ne'-sus, or Mo-re'-a, as we now call it, and 
drove out the Achseans, who lived there. The 
Achseans in turn crowded out the ^olians to the 
north. 

The result of all this was that many Greeks 
of all races crossed over to Asia and established 
colonies along the shores of the Aegean Sea. 
It took a long time for the country to become quiet 
again. When the confusion was over, we find that 
two cities had become more powerful than the rest — 
Sparta, in southern Greece, and Athens, in central 
Greece. These two cities established a kind of 
leadership over the others, and afterwards became 
rivals for the first place. 

The noble families became jealous of the kings, 
and drove them out. They then governed the cities 
themselves. When a few people have control, we 
call the government an oK-i-gar-chy. 

Next, we find the common people rising up 
against the nobles. Some brave man would become 



80 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

their leader. They would then put down the 
nobles. To do this, an army had to be raised. The 
crafty leader would get control of the army, and 
after the nobles were driven out he would set him- 
self up as chief ruler. Such a ruler the Greeks 
called a ty'-rant. This meant one who ruled with- 
out authority, but not a bad ruler, for a tyrant 
might be a good man. 

One of the most noted tyrants was Pi-sis'-tra- 
tus of Athens. One day he came running into the 
market-place with a number of wounds upon his 
body, which he had made himself. 

" See," he cried to the people, " how the nobles 
have treated me, because I have been your friend! " 

The people at once gave him a guard of fifty 
men. He soon gathered a much larger force, 
seized the A-crop'-o-lis, or hill, where there was a 
strong fort, and made himself master of the city. 
Pisistratus ruled Athens for thirty-three years. 
He made the city beautiful with parks and fine 
buildings. He gathered a large library and gave 
it to the people, and collected and published for the 
first time the poems of Homer. 

Another tyrant who was a friend to educa- 
tion was Per-i-an'-der of Corinth. The Greeks 
thought so well of him that they counted him 
among their seven wisest men. 

The Greeks were too fond of liberty to submit 
very long to the rule of the tyrants. They were 



GREECE 81 

soon put down, and free governments established. 
Athens and other Ionian cities had dem-o-crat'-ie 
governments — that is, the people ruled. Sparta 
and the other Dorian cities were ruled by a few of 
the nobles. 

In times of strife and trouble it usually happens 
that some wise man appears who makes good laws 
or plans a new kind of government. Ma'-nu in 
India, Me'-nes in Egypt, and Moses, the leader of 
the Hebrews, were such lawgivers. 

The lawgiver who planned the government of 
Sparta was Ly-cur'-gus. Before undertaking his 
great work in Sparta, he is said to have traveled 
in India and Egypt, studying the laws of those 
countries. He went to Crete to learn about the 
laws of ]\Ii'-nos, the first king and lawgiver of that 
island. He then came home and made the laws 
of Sparta. 

When his work was done, he went to consult the 
oracle at Delphi. He made the people promise to 
obey all his laws until he should return. In answer 
to his questions about the welfare of Sparta, the 
oracle told him that his country would " prosper as 
long as she should obey his laws." 

Lycurgus sent this answer to his countrymen, 
and then went far away into a strange country, and 
died an exile. No one knew what became of him, 
but the Spartans always honored his memory with 
temples and with festivals. 



C2 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

In Sparta there were two kings, each to keep 
watch of the other. Laws were made by an 
assembly of all the men over thirty years of 
age. There was at first a senate of twenty-eight 
men to conduct the government, but later all the 
power was given to ^ve men called eph'-ors, or 
overseers. 

The object of Lycurgus's laws was to make a 
race of warriors. The Spartans trained the body 
by athletic exercises. The boys practiced the use 
of weapons until they became very expert. But 
reading, writing, and oratory were despised. 
They had martial music, for that gave the soldiers 
courage. The children were taken from their 
parents at the age of seven and brought up by the 
government. From that time until the age of 
sixty they never returned to their homes, except for 
a visit. All ate at the public tables. The food 
was of the simplest kind, but no complaints were 
ever heard. An Athenian who once dined with 
them said he saw why the Spartans were not afraid 
of death. " For anyone," he said, " would prefer 
death to living on such food as this." 

The Spartans built no walls or defenses for 
their city. A traveler once asked the Spartan king, 
" Where are your walls? " 

" These are our walls," the king replied as he 
pointed to his soldiers. 

Athens was just the opposite of Sparta. There 



GREECE 83 

the body was trained, but only that the mind might 
be made better. 

The people ruled in Athens, and there were no 
kings. The last Athenian king was Co'-drus, who 
gave his life for his country, in this way: The 
Dorians had invaded the land, and the oracle said 
that " if the king should die the country would be 
safe." Codrus went out with only one companion, 
and attacked the enemy. He was soon killed. 

His successor was called simply ar'-chon, or 
ruler, for the Athenians said that " no one was 
worthy to be called king after Codrus." 

After a time a strife arose between the nobles 
and the people, and Dra'-co was appointed to pre- 
pare new laws. 

These laws were so severe that it was said they 
were " written in blood, not ink." Draco said, 
" The smallest offenses deserve death, and I know 
of no severer punishment for the great ones." 

The people soon murmured against Draco's 
laws, and So'-lon, another of the " seven wise men," 
was chosen to make new laws. His laws were 
noted for their mildness. 

Under the laws of Draco a man could be sold 
into slavery for debt. Solon did away with this. 
He gave all power to the assembly of all the people, 
in which every man had the right to speak. This 
assembly selected the nine archons, and a senate of 
four hmidred. 



84 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

After the tyrants had been driven out, another 
lawgiver, named CUs'-the-nes, arose. He divided 
all the people of At'-ti-ca into ten tribes, and 
increased the number of the senate to five 
hundred. 

Clisthenes also introduced the practice of os'- 
tra-cism. This was a way of getting rid of a 
troublesome man by exiling him for ten years. It 
was so called from the word ostrakon, which means 
a shell. If six thousand persons handed in a man's 
name written on a shell, that man had to leave the 
country. 

Under this good government Athens soon be- 
came the strongest state in Greece. Such progress 
did she make that the Spartans became jealous of 
her, and tried to change her government and set up 
one like their own. 

But Sparta failed. Her armies were twice de- 
feated, and Athens became stronger than ever. 

GREECE AND PERSIA 

When Darius was trying to subdue the revolt 
of his Greek cities in Asia, the Athenians had sent 
soldiers to help their countrymen. During this 
revolt, Sardis, the old capital of Lydia, was taken 
and burned by the Greeks. Darius was so angry 
at their insolence that he had one of his servants 
repeat to him every day the words " Master, re- 
member the Athenians." 



GREECE 85 

The time had now come, 500 B.C., when he was 
to attempt to punish them. 

His first attempt to invade Greece failed, on 
account of a terrible storm, which wrecked his fleet 
and compelled the army to retreat. But ten years 
later he came again, with one hundred and twenty 
thousand men and six hundred ships. The Persian 
army landed at Mar'-a-thon, a broad plain on the 
coast of Attica, near Athens. 

The Athenians had sent to several of the Greek 
cities for aid, but only Pla-tse'-a responded, with a 
thousand men. The Spartans were delayed on ac- 
count of a religious festival, and came too late for 
the battle. 

Mil-ti'-a-des, the Athenian general, drew up his 
ten thousand men on the hills back of Marathon, 
facing a Persian army ten times as large, arranged 
near the seashore. Back of them, along the shore, 
lay their ships. 

Singing their war hymn, the long, thin line of 
Greeks came running down the hill, and fiercely 
attacked the Persians as they were crowded to- 
gether in masses. The Persians were too aston- 
ished and frightened to fight long, and throwing 
away their spears, they ran to the ships. 

The Greeks followed, but the Persians fought 
desperately, and lost only ten ships. 

The Greeks lost one hundred and ninety-two 
men ; but sixty- four hundred of the enemy lay dead 



86 



OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 



on the field. A swift herald was sent to Athens 
with the news of the victory. 

Before the battle was over, the flash of a bright 
shield on the top of a hill near Athens, twenty miles 
away, caught the eye of Miltiades. It was a signal 
from some treacherous Greek to the Persian com- 
manders to sail to Athens and destroy the city while 
its defenders were away. But Miltiades under- 




Greek Warriors. 



stood the signal, and he at once marched his army 
toward Athens. 

When the Persians came sailing to Athens the 
next morning they saw the very men who had de- 
feated them on the previous day. They had no 
mind to try the mettle of 'such men any further; 
they gave up the war and returned to Asia. 

When Darius heard of the defeat at Marathon, 



GREECE 87 

he at once began to gather men, ships, and supphes. 
He would attack Greece with so large a force that 
failure should be impossible. 

While he was still making preparations he 
died, and his son Xerx'-es came to the throne. 
Xerxes continued the work of his father, and for 
eight years all Asia was busy making ready to 
destroy Greece. Men were gathered from every 
part of the empire, from India to the African 
deserts. 

Storehouses along the line of march were filled 
with grain. A great bridge of boats was built 
across the Hellespont, so that the army might 
march as if on dry ground. A canal was cut 
around Mount Athos, the dangerous promontory 
where his former fleet had been wrecked. 

At last everything was ready. The fleet and 
army met at Sardis. For seven days and nights 
the Persian host streamed over the bridge. Xerx- 
es's bodyguard, tlie " ten thousand immortals," 
in holiday dress, led the van. Behind them came 
the king, drawn by eight milk-white horses, in the 
chariot of the sun. 

On the plain of Do-ris'-cus the vast host was 
covmted. A wall was built around ten thousand 
men drawn up as closely together as they could 
stand. This space was filled one hinidred and 
seventy times, making the number of the army 
one million seven hundred thousand men. 



88 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

The fleet carried a half milhon more. Adding 
to these numbers the servants and slaves who accom- 
panied the army, it is probable that the whole host 
numbered over five millions of men. 

The Greeks were kept informed of the doings 
of the Persians, and they were preparing to meet 
them. The two leaders at Athens were The-mis'- 
to-cles and Ar-is-ti'-des. Both loved their coun- 
try. Themistocles was the abler man, but Aristi- 
des w^as so famed for honesty that he received the 
surname The Just. Aristides wished to strengthen 
the army, but Themistocles thought it better to 
build up the fleet. The strife between them be- 
came so violent that the city decided to ostracize 
one of them. When the shells cast into the urn 
were counted, it was found that there were six 
thousand bearing the name of Aristides. He there- 
fore went into exile. 

A story is told of Aristides that he was once 
stopped along the road by a rough countryman, 
who asked him, not knowing who he was, to write 
the name Aristides upon a shell. " And what harm 
has Aristides done you, that you wish to banish 
him? " he asked. " He has done me no harm," 
said the man; "I do not even know him, but I 
am tired of hearing him called ' The Just.' " 

Themistocles, left in power, made the Athenian 
fleet the strongest in Greece. A congress of all 
the Greek cities was held at Corinth the year before 



GREECE 89 

Xerxes crossed the Plellespont. But some of them 
had been bribed by the Persians; some were jealous 
of Athens, some of Sparta, who was to have chief 
command, and only fifteen united against the 
enemy. 

The road which Xerxes was following along 
the coast of Greece is interrupted at one point by 
a narrow pass called Ther-mop'-y-lae, or the Hot 
Gates, from the hot springs that break out at the 
foot of the cliffs. Here the Greeks had stationed 
the Spartan king Le-on'-i-das, with three hundred 
of his own men and six thousand allies from dif- 
ferent states. The main body of the Greeks were 
celebrating the Sacred Games. 

Leonidas was expected to hold the pass till the 
games were over, when reenforcements would be 
sent. Xerxes waited a few days for the Greeks to 
retreat, not dreaming that so small a number would 
dare to resist. But when the Spartan king Dem- 
a-ra'-tus, who had been driven from his own coun- 
try and had joined the Persians, told Xerxes that 
the Spartans would surely fight, the king sent a 
messenger to Leonidas ordering him to give up his 
arms. The reply of the Spartan was, " Come and 
take them!" 

For two days the Persians stormed the pass. 
The wall of their dead along the Spartan front 
grew steadily larger. The " immortals " attacked 
again and again, with no better success. Xerxes, 



90 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

from his throne on a high diff overlooking the pass, 
three times leaped up in anger and astonishment at 
their failure. 

At length a treacherous Greek pointed out to 
Xerxes a mountain path by which he could gain 
the rear of the Spartans. When Leonidas saw the 
danger he allowed his allies to retreat. All but 
seven hundred Thespians retired. The laws of 
Sparta forbade retreat or surrender, and the little 
band, surrounded by the Persian host, fought and 
died to the last man. 

Above their graves in after years a marble shaft 
was placed, with the following inscription: 

Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by, 
That here obedient to her laws we lie. 

Athens now lay open to the invaders. The 
oracle had said, " When everything else in Attica 
is taken, you shall find shelter behind your wooden 
walls." This was thought to mean the ships. So 
the town was left, and the women and children sent 
to a place of safety. The soldiers were all placed 
upon the ships in the bay of SaF-a-mis. Here, 
too, were the fleets of other cities, nearly four hun- 
dred ships in all. 

They were attacked by a Persian force of seven 
hundred and fifty ships. King Xerxes himself 
witnessed the battle. 



GREECE 91 

A king sat on the rocky brow 

That looks o'er sea-born Salamis ; 

And ships by thousands lay below, 
And men in nations — all were his. 

He counted them at break of day, 

And when the sun set, where were they ? 

Two hundred Persian ships were destroyed, and 
the rest fled. The terrified Xerxes hastened back 
to Asia before his bridge should be destroyed. He 
left a fleet and an army under Mar-do'-ni-us to con- 
tinue the war. But in the following year his army 
was defeated at Platsea by the Spartan general 
Pau-sa'-ni-as, and his fleet was destroyed at Myc'- 
a-le, in Asia Minor, where it had been drawn up 
on shore to escape the Greeks. The Persians never 
invaded Greece again. 

AVARS AMONG THE GREEK STATES 

The close of the Persian War left Themistocles 
the foremost man in Athens, and Athens the fore- 
most city in Greece. The people speedily built up 
their homes, which the Persians had burned. They 
enlarged their city, and built a wall around it seven 
miles in extent. 

The Spartans sent messengers to persuade them* 
not to build the wall. " For," said they, " if the 
Persians take your city again they may remain in 
it, and it will be hard to drive them out." 



92 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

What the Spartans really feared was that Ath- 
ens would become stronger than they. The Athe- 
nians said they would send men to talk the matter 
over with them. They sent Themistocles ahead, 
but the other men were not to start till the walls 
were built high enough to defy the Spartans, if 
they should try to stop the work. 

In the meantime Themistocles managed to keep 
the Spartans quiet. When they would wait no 
longer for his friends, he ordered them to send to 
Athens to inquire the cause of the delay. Secretly 
he sent word to detain the Spartan messengers in 
Athens. 

In this way time enough was gained to build 
the wall so high that it could be defended. The 
Athenians also built walls, four miles long and 
sixty feet high, running from the town down to 
the harbor. They increased their fleet by adding 
to it twenty vessels each year. After a few years 
they felt safe. If they should be attacked from 
the land, the high walls would protect them; while 
their strong fleet could supply them with food. 

Aristides the Just had returned from exile in 
time to fight the Persians at Salamis. He now 
did another work which made Athens the strong- 
est power in the world. He formed all the island 
cities, and some of the cities in northern Greece, 
into a great union called the Con-fed'-er-a-cy of 
De'-los. This league was to defend Greece against 



GREECE 93 

the Persians. All the cities were taxed to build up 
a fleet, which Athens kept for herself. 

Soon she became so powerful in her navy that 
Ci'-mon, the son of Miltiades, was sent to drive the 
Persians out of the Greek cities in Asia. He was 
very successful, and the rich spoils that he brought 
home were used to beautify the city. Public build- 
ings were erected, and walks and parks were laid 
out. 

One of these parks, called the Academy, was 
a favorite resort of the Athenians, and was noted as 
the place where the wise men and philosophers, like 
Soc'-ra-tes and Plato, met to talk with their pupils. 

Cimon's very generosity at last brought about 
his disgrace and exile. A great earthquake had 
destroyed a large part of the city of Sparta. In 
the confusion, their slaves, called he'-lots, took up 
arms against their masters. The Spartans were 
not able to conquer the slaves, who were more in 
number than they, and called on Athens for help. 

The advice of Per'-i-cles, the greatest man in 
Athens next to Cimon, was not to send aid. 

But Cimon said, " Athens and Sparta are the 
two legs of Greece; do not let one of them be 
lamed." 

So the Athenians decided to return good for 
evil, and sent Cimon with an army to help Sparta. 
But when he arrived there the Spartans did not 
trust him, fearing that he would take sides with the 



94 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

helots. They therefore sent him back to Athens. 
This so angered the people that they drove Cimon 
into exile, and Pericles became the chief statesman 
in Athens. 

Pericles made some changes in the government 
which gave the people more power. He said that 
the poorest man ought to take part in the govern- 
ment as well as the richest. He therefore intro- 
duced the method of filling the public offices by 
lot, so that every citizen had an equal chance. Be- 
fore his time all public officials had served without 
pay, but to enable the poor man to take part in the 
government, he introduced the system of paying 
salaries to those who gave their time to the work 
of the State. He also had allowances made to the 
poorer citizens so that they might attend the per- 
formances in the theater and the religious festivals. 

Themistocles had been exiled for taking bribes, 
but Pericles carried out his plan for strengthening 
the navy. He built many ships and equipped them 
in the best possible manner, for he saw that if the 
Greeks were to be the strongest nation they must 
rule the sea. Once he said to the people: " There 
is no king or nation in the world which can at this 
moment withstand the navy which you can put out 
to sea." 

It was Pericles who built the splendid temples 
and gateways which you may still see crowning the 



GREECE 95 

A-crop'-o-lis at Athens. He built the Par'-the- 
non, the ruins of which still remain, and the splen- 
did approaches to the Acropolis. He adorned the 
streets and public places with statues of gods and 
heroes. There were so many of them that it was 
said " One met more statues than men in the streets 
of Athens." Pericles encouraged artists and sculp- 
tors to perform their best work. It was during his 
time that the great sculptor Phid-i-as, who designed 
the Parthenon, lived, and that the famous dramas 
of Eu-rip'-i-des, Soph'-o-cles, and other poets, were 
written and performed in the theaters of Athens. 

Pericles was the most distinguished statesman 
and political leader of Greece. Though rich and 
of noble birth he was the friend and leader of the 
people, and insisted that all were entitled to equal 
rights and privileges in the states. One reason for 
his great success was his power as a speaker. Some 
of his public addresses are preserved and may be 
read in the history of Greece written by Thu-cyd'- 
i-des. The period of 28 years, from 459 to 481 B. c. 
is called the " Age of Pericles ; " during this period 
Athens had more famous men than the whole world 
ever produced in the same length of time. 

During the time of Pericles, all the Greek cities 
were either joined to Sparta or Athens. These two 
cities had never been very friendly, and soon a 
great war arose between them which had the most 




Italy and Neighboring Countries. 



GREECE 97 

terrible results for Athens, and weakened the whol© 
of Greece. 

Athens had interfered with some Dorian col- 
onies on the coast of Macedonia, and Sparta de- 
clared war. When the Spartans invaded Attica 
all the Athenians gathered behind their walls in 
Athens. Here a terrible disease broke out, and 
one-fourth of the fighting men died. Among them 
was the great statesman Pericles. At his death he 
said that he had so lived " that no Athenian need 
ever put on mourning through act of his." 

The leader in the later part of this war 
was a brilliant young man named Al-ci-bi'-a-des. 
Though he was reckless and wicked, he won the 
love of the Athenian people, and could get them 
to vote for any of his measures. 

He persuaded the people to send out a large 
army and fleet, with himself as commander, to 
attack the Dorian city of Syr'-a-cuse, in Sicily. 
" Then," he said, " we will conquer Africa and 
unite all the armies with our own. With such a 
force we can afterwards crush Sparta at one blow." 
This seemed easy, but the forty thousand men who 
sailed away from Athens to Sicily never returned. 
They were defeated, and perished miserably. 

Those that were not killed were sold as slaves. 
Alcibiades was called home to answer to a charge 
of destroying some statues of the gods in Athens; 
but he deserted to Sparta, and advised them to send 



98 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

an army and their best general to Sicily. This was 
done, and helped to destroy the Athenians. 

The Athenians raised another fleet and army, 
but they were finally defeated by the Spartan gen- 
eral Ly-san'-der at ^-gos-pot'-a-mus, on the Hel- 
lespont. The Athenians had lost sixty thousand 
men and nearly all their ships. Sparta then com- 
pelled them to pull down all their walls and forts 
that defended the harbors, and allowed them 
to keep only twelve ships of war. 

For thirty years Sparta was the strongest na- 
tion in Greece. Then the army of Thebes, com- 
manded by E-pam-i-non'-das and Pe-lop'-i-das, 
vanquished her in the battles of Leuc'-tra and Man- 
ti-ne'-a. 

For a few years Thebes held the first place. 
Then a mighty power arose in Macedonia under 
Philip, and in 338 B.C., by the battle of Chasr-o- 
ne'-a, he became the ruler of Greece. 

For many years Philip had been planning to 
get control of affairs in Greece, and now something 
happened that gave him a chance to do it. The 
Pho'-cians had robbed the temple of Apollo at 
Delphi. When the other Greek cities found that 
they were not strong enough to punish them, they 
called on Philip for aid. This he gladly gave, 
and was made a member of the union. 

There was one man at Athens who saw that 
Philip would soon attack them. This was the ora- 



GREECE 



99 



tor De-mos'-the-nes. He made twelve speeches to 

the Athenians, urging them to fight Phihp before 

he should take 
away their liber- 
ties. But the peo- 
ple had grown 
careless and idle, 
and did not heed 
what he said. And 
when at last the 
Thebans and Athe- 
nians did try to 
drive Philip out, 
he was too strong 
for them. 

Though Athens 
had ceased to be 
strong in w^ar, she 
became more tluin 
ever the leader in 
education, in phi- 
losophy, in art and 
science. It was 
during the time 
that Sparta ruled 
that Soc'-ra-tes, 
the greatest of 

Greek teachers and philosophers, lived in Athens. 

His father was a sculptor, and Socrates had begun 




Demosthenes. 



100 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

to learn the same art, when he was obliged to lay 
down the chisel and take up spear and shield to 
fight Sparta. 

After the war he became a teacher. He had no 
school, and charged nothing for instruction. His 
pupils were those whom he met on the street or in 
the shops and parks. He neglected his home, and 
did not provide well for his children. It is no 
wonder that his wife Xan-thip'-pe scolded him. 
Once she threw a pitcher of water over him. " I 
am not surprised," said Socrates, " that it has be- 
gun to rain, for Xanthippe has been thundering 
for a long time." 

Socrates did not believe in the gods that the 
Greeks worshiped, and the charge of impiety was 
brought against him. He was also accused of mis- 
leading the young men by his teaching. For these 
things he was sentenced to drink poison. His last 
days were spent in prison. His friends were 
allowed to visit him, and his chief pupil, Plato, has 
given us an account of his death. 

One of his pupils asked, " In what way shall we 
bury you, Socrates? " 

"Just as you please," he replied; " if you can 
catch me and I do not escape you. I cannot per- 
suade Cri'-to," he said to the others, " that when I 
have drunk the poison I shall no longer remain 
with you, but shall depart to some happy state of 
the blessed. You cannot bury Socrates, but you 



GREECE 101 

may bury my body in any way agreeable to our 
laws." 

Soon after this he drank the poison that the 
jailer brought, and lay down. He soon felt him- 
self growing cold, but death came so easily that he 
said to Crito, " We owe a sacrifice to the god of 
medicine; pay it, and do not neglect it." 

" This was the end of our friend," says Plato, 
" the best man of all his time, and the most just 
and wise." 

ALEXANDER THE GREAT 

Socrates's famous pupil Plato had a still more 
famous pupil, Ar-is-tot'-le, of the city of Sta-gi'-ra, 
in JNIacedonia. He became the teacher of Alexan- 
der, the son of Philip of Macedonia. 

Aristotle was the greatest thinker and writer of 
ancient times, and no man has ever lived since who 
was wiser than he. For two thousand years his 
books were studied by all those who wished to have 
the best education. 

His pupil, Alexander, liked much better to read 
the poems of Homer than to listen to the instruc- 
tion of Aristotle. He loved those books because 
they told of war and heroes. When he saw his 
father conquering one city after another, he cried 
out, "Alas, there will be nothing left for me to do! " 
He was fond of athletic sports, and was a fine horse- 
man. He succeeded in training a war horse called 



102 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Bu-ceph'-a-lus, that had been given to his father, 
and which was so fierce that no man could be found 
to ride him. 

Alexander was twenty years old when he be- 
came King of Macedonia. He soon found plenty 
of work to do. The Greek cities and the wild 
tribes on the north all revolted at once ; and because 
so young a king had come to the throne, it seemed 
a good time to get back their liberty. But in two 
years he had crushed all his enemies. 

The city of Thebes revolted the second time, 
and Alexander appeared suddenly with an army 
and leveled the city with the ground, leaving only 
the house of the poet Pindar. He put six hundred 
of the people to death and sold the rest as slaves. 

It was the ambition of Alexander to conquer 
the world. The Persian empire was still the chief 
power in Asia, and it was this empire that he set 
out to conquer in 334 B.C. 

He crossed the Hellespont with thirty-five thou- 
sand men. A third Darius was now ruling in Per- 
sia. On the banks of the river Gra-ni'-cus he met 
a Persian army and defeated it. With his own 
hand Alexander slew two Persian nobles. He sent 
three hundred suits of armor, gathered from the 
battle field, as an oiFering to the goddess Mi-ner'-va 
at Athens. 

The chief means by which Philip and Alexander 
won their battles was the phalanx. This was a body 



GREECE 103 

of men sixteen deep and a thousand in line, making 
sixteen thousand in all. They were armed with 
pikes or spears so long that the spears of the first 
five lines reached out in front of the phalanx. 
This body moved in a mass, and nothing could with- 
stand it on level ground. When the phalanx struck 
the Persian army it plowed a road through it like 
some great machine. 

Alexander marched on toward Persia. Pass- 
ing through the city of Gor'-di-um, he visited the 
temple of Jupiter. Here he heard this story: A 
peasant named Gordius was once chosen king of 
that country. In gratitude he had placed his 
wagon and the yoke for the oxen as an offering in 
the temple. The yoke was fastened to the pole by 
a rope tied in a very intricate knot. The oracle 
had said that " whoever could untie the knot would 
be the master of all Asia." 

When the knot was shown to Alexander he 
drew his sword and cut it. This was thought to be 
the meaning of the oracle. From this story we 
have received the expression " cutting the Gordian 
knot," meaning a quick way out of a difficulty. 

By the following year Darius had raised a force 
of six hundred thousand men, and he advanced to 
attack Alexander. The two armies met on the nar- 
row plain of Is'-sus, near the Mediterranean Sea. 
At the first attack of the Macedonian cavalry the 
Persians broke and fled. A vast number of the 



104 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

fugitives were killed, and the tent of Darius, his 
wife and children, and a large amount of money, 
fell into the hands of the Greeks. 

From Issus, Alexander marched southward into 
Phoenicia and Palestine. The city of Tyre alone 
held out against him, and refused to allow him 
to enter. Tyre stood upon an island half a mile 
from the mainland. As Alexander had no ships, 
he built a solid road of timbers and earth through 
the sea to the island. Even then he could not break 
down the wall which surrounded the city. He then 
went among the towns he had conquered and gath- 
ered a fleet of two hundred ships. He surrounded 
Tyre and attacked it on all sides at once. 

The Greeks at last broke through the walls and 
took the city. Eight thousand men were killed, 
and the rest of the people were sold as slaves. This 
siege of Tyre took nine months, and is considered 
to be the most difficult task that Alexander accom- 
plished. 

The conqueror next marched to Egypt. The 
Egyptians had been ruled harshly by Persia, and 
were only too glad to change masters. Here Alex- 
ander founded, at the western mouth of the Nile, 
a city which has become the most important in 
Egypt. He marked out the streets with his own 
hand, and named it after himself, Alexandria. 
But he also did a very foolish thing in Egypt. He 
went to the temple of Jupiter in the desert, where 



GREECE 105 

there was a noted oracle. He had the priests of 
the temple say that he was not the son of Philip, 
but the son of the god Jupiter, and that he was 
destined to conquer the world. 

After leaving Egypt Alexander again set out 
in pursuit of Darius, who was raising an army to 
meet him. The final battle took place at Ar-be'-la, 
where the Persians were so badly defeated and scat- 
tered that they could not be united. The different 
nations composing their great army went to their 
homes, and Darius fled away with only a small 
bodyguard. 

He was afterwards killed in Bactria by his own 
nobles, who hoped by putting an end to the king to 
stop the pursuit of Alexander. The Greeks then 
took possession of the chief cities of Asia. Susa, 
Babylon, and Per-sep'-o-lis, wdth immense treas- 
ures, fell into their hands. 

In Bactria Alexander met a beautiful princess, 
Roxana, and was so charmed with her that he made 
her his queen. He next crossed the Hindu Kush 
Mountains into India. Along the upper waters 
of the Indus River he found and conquered a rich 
country ruled by a king named Porns. 

Alexander soon afterwards returned to Baby- 
lon, which he intended to make the capital of his 
vast empire. Here he was taken sick with a fever, 
of which he died at the age of thirty-two years. 
His empire was divided among his generals. 



106 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Ptor-e-my received Egypt and the coast of the 
Mediterranean Sea; Cas-san'-der took Macedonia; 
L<y-sim'-a-chus, Asia Minor and Thrace; while to 
Se-leu'-cus fell the greater part of Asia. Only the 
kingdom of Ptolemy lasted very long, and all of 
them fell, one after another, into the hands of the 
Romans. 

The wars of Alexander had spread the Greek 
language and learning throughout Asia. It made 
the two continents that had been so long at war bet- 
ter acquainted, and henceforth they lived in peace. 

But a nation in the West, the Romans, had 
grown powerful, and began to move eastward, as 
Alexander had done, conquering all nations and 
making them a part of their own empire. 



XI. ROME 

The story of Rome, like that of Athens, is the 
story of a single city. This city grew so strong 
that it conquered country after country, until, like 
Alexander, it ruled the known world. 

The founding of Rome was a matter of little 
importance at the time, for no one could then have 
foreseen the destiny in store for the "Eternal City," 
as it is now called, after more than twenty-six and 
a half centuries. We have only legendary stories 
of the early life of the city. These have been told 
in the writings of poets and historians until they 
are known over all the world, being written in books 
of all languages. 

The stories of early Rome, however much they 
may have been exaggerated in retelling, for many 
generations before they were first written, are in- 
teresting as showing the old Roman love for truth, 
heroism, and virtue in all its forms; for they deal 
chiefly with men and women of high character and 
noble lives, according to the standard of those rude 
times. 

EARLY KINGS 

The Roman historian Livy tells us that after 
Troy was burned by the Greeks, a Trojan prince, 
Ae-ne'-as, escaped with the remnant of his people, 
to Italy. 

107 



108 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

There they were kindly received by King La-ti'- 
nus, who gave Aeneas his daughter La-vin'-i-a in 
marriage. 

The Trojans built first the city of La-vin'-i-um, 
and afterward, Alba Longa, where their kings ruled 
for many years. 

The last of the Trojan kings was Sil'-vi-us 
Pro'-cas, who had two sons, Nu'-mi-tor and A-mu'- 
li-us. Amulius, the younger, seized the crown, which 
rightfully belonged to Numitor. 

But Numitor had a son and daughter who 
might make trouble for the unlawful king. The 
son he put to death, and the daughter, whose name 
was Rhea Silvia, he compelled to become a Vestal 
virgin. The Vestal virgins were girls chosen to 
take care of the temple of the goddess Vesta and to 
keep the sacred fire burning. They took a vow 
not to marry, and were buried alive if they did. 
But Silvia fell in love with Mars, the god of war, 
who came to her as a handsome young man and 
married her. By and by she had twin sons, Rom'- 
u-lus and Re'-mus. 

When Amulius heard of this he seized her and 
put her to death, according to the custom. He put 
the two babies in a basket and threw it into the river 
Tiber. The basket washed ashore, and the two 
children were found by a mother wolf, who took 
care of them as if they were her own cubs. A 



ROME 109 

woodpecker also, according to the Roman story, 
brought them food. At length a good shepherd, 
Faus'-tu-lus, found the twins, took them to his 
house, and brought them up as his own children. 

ROMULUS AND REMUS 

When Romulus and Remus found out that 
they were the sons of Rhea Silvia, and how Amu- 
lius had murdered their mother, they attacked and 
slew him in his palace, and made their old grand- 
father, Nvmiitor, king. 

After a time Romulus and Remus were led by 
signs to found a city of their own on the bank of 
the river where their lives had been so wonder- 
fully saved. So they went away from Alba Longa 
with their friends and followers, and laid out a 
new city. 

But a quarrel arose between the two brothers 
about a name for it, each claiming the honor, and 
Romulus, by accident, killed his brother. And so 
Romulus became the founder and king of the new 
city, and named it Rome. This was in the year 
753 B.C. The Romans made a wall about the city 
to protect their homes. 

There were several hills in Rome, and on one 
of these, the Palatine Hill, Romulus built a fort to 
guard the city. Around this fort were built the 
first houses. In after years the city was made 
larger, and included seven hills within the walls. 



110 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

After a time, another people called Sabines, 
joined the Romans and then the Lu'-ce-res came 
from Etruria, north of the Tiber. 

The Roman people were now made up of three 
tribes; the Ram'-nes, or Romans of Romulus; the 
Ti'-ti-es, or Sabines, and the Luceres. These three 
tribes wxre the nobles, or pa-tri'-cians. But there 
was another class of people, called ple-be'-ians. 
^L^iey were the workmen, mechanics, and servants 
of the patricians. None of them had anything to 
do with the government, and they could not figlit 
in the army. 

From the patricians Romulus chose two hun- 
dred men called senators, or old men. There was 
also an assembly made of the heads of families, or 
men capable of bearing arms. This was called the 
Co-mi'-tia Cu-ri-a'-ta. 

The Senate made laws and carried on the gov- 
ernment, but they always had to have the consent 
of the assembly of fighting men. In case of war 
each tribe sent one thousand men on foot and one 
hundred horsemen. The assembled army of thirty- 
three hundred men was called the Legion. 

After making this form of government for his 
people, Romulus suddenly disappeared. A story 
tells us that he was carried oiF to heaven by his 
father. Mars, in the midst of a thunderstorm. 
There he became one of the gods and was worshiped 
under the name Qui-ri'-nus. The Roman people 



ROME 111 

were often called Qui-ri'-tes, or Men of the Spear. 
The next king was Nu'-ma Pom-pir-i-us, a Sa- 
bine. He told the Romans just how and when they 
should worship the gods. 

He appointed four pon'-tiifs, or priests, and a 
chief priest called Pon'-ti-fex Max'-i-mus. These 
priests had charge of the worship of all the gods, 
and settled all cases of dispute. Then there was 
a priest of Jupiter, one to Quirinus, and four Vestal 
virgins. 

Numa appointed also four men, called au'-gurs, 
whose business it was to find out the will of the 
gods. This was done in various ways, such as 
watching the flight of birds, and by inspecting the 
entrails of the animals sacrificed. Numa is said 
also to have divided the year into twelve months, 
and to have appointed certain da^^s as holidays, 
when no business might be done. 

TUI/-LUS HOS-TIL'-I-US 

Soon after the death of the good King Xuma 
the assembly chose Tullus Hostilius as his successor. 
The chief event in the reign of Tullus was a war 
with the old city of Alba, in which the Albans were 
defeated. 

They were forced to come to Rome to live, and 
they added to the numbers and strength of the city. 
Tullus also built a house in front of the Palatine 



112 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Hill, where for centuries the Senate held its meet- 
ings. 

an'-cus mar'-ti-us 

The next king was Ancus JNIartius, a Sabine. 
He built the first prison in Rome and the first 
bridge over the Tiber. He also appointed a num- 
ber of men called heralds, whose duty it was to 
conduct public business with foreign nations. They 
declared war by going to the hostile country and 
hurling a spear over the boundary. 

tar'-quin 

Before the time of Tarquin, the next king, all 
the power at Rome was in the hands of the two 
older tribes, the Ramnes and the Tities. But Tar- 
quin added one hundred new senators from the 
Etruscan tribe, the Luceres. He also wanted to 
make three new tribes from the common people, or 
plebeians, many of whom had become rich, and 
Tarquin saw that they would soon demand a share 
in the government. 

Tarquin is best known for his great public 
works. He planned the fo'-rum, or public meet- 
ing place, and built shops along two sides of it. 
Between the Palatine and Av'-en-tine hills he laid 
out the Circus Maximus, a great race course for 
the celebration of the Roman games. 

His greatest work was the Clo-a'-ca Maxima, or 



ROME 113 

great sewer, which led off the stagnant waters that 
gathered in some low, swampy ground within the 
city. So well was this sewer built that it is still 
used in Rome. It is so large that a boat can sail 
through it, and the joining of the arched stones 
is so exact that a knife cannot be thrust between 
them. 

After reigning thirty-eight years Tarquin was 
murdered by two countrymen, who were urged on 
by the sons of Ancus Martins. They planned to 
seize the throne, but they were outwitted by Tana- 
quil, the wife of Tarquin, who caused Servius Tul- 
lius, an Etruscan, to put on the royal robe and 
declare himself king. 

Though he was not lawfully chosen, Servius 
proved to be the wisest and best of all the Roman 
kings. 

ser'-vi-us tul'-ij-us 

Servius carried out the plans of Tarquin to give 
all the people a share in the government. He 
divided the w^hole people into five great classes, ac- 
cording to their property. 

Each class was divided into companies, called 
centuries. There wxre in all one hundred and 
ninety-three centuries. 

When all the centuries met in the Field of JNIars 
to attend to public business, they were called the 
Co-mi'-ti-a Cen-tu-ri-a'-ta, or the meeting of the 



114 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

centuries. This assembly gradually took the place 
of the older Comitia Curiata, which was made up 
of patricians only. 

The greater number of the plebeians lived on 
farms outside the city. Servius divided the land 
into twenty districts; afterwards thirty-five. The 
men from these districts, which were called tribes, 
met together to attend to business which concerned 
the plebeians alone. This assembly was called the 
Comitia Tri-bu'-ta, or meeting of the tribes. 

TxVRQUIN THE PROUD 

Tarquin the Proud was the last and worst of 
the seven Roman kings. He showed so much favor 
to his Etruscan friends that the Romans hated 
him. 

Though he was an able ruler, and did much to 
improve the city, he was looked upon as a foreigner 
and a despot. A crime of almost incredible base- 
ness, committed by a prince of his family, named 
Sextus, against a noble Roman household, led to 
the overthrow of the monarchy ; and the very name 
of king {recc in Latin) became so odious that it was 
not assumed even by the great Roman emperors of 
a later date. 

A very singular story of Tarquin the Proud 
tells how the Romans came to possess their sacred 
books. 



ROME 115 

While he was building a temple to Jupiter, a 
mysterious woman came to him and offered to sell 
him nine books at a huge price. He refused to buy, 
and the woman went away and destroyed three of 
the books. She then came again, and offered him 
the remaining six at the same price. Tarquin 
again refused. The woman then destroyed three 
more books, and then came again, o|f ering the three 
that were left at the original price. 

By this time Tarquin was curious as to what 
the books contained, and he asked the augur about 
them. 

The augur said that the woman was a prophet- 
ess, or sibyl, and that the books contained prophe- 
cies about Rome. The king bought the three 
books, and put two men in charge of them. The 
books were kept in a stone chest in a cellar under 
the temple, and were always consulted when any 
danger threatened the city. They were called the 
Sib'-yl-line Books. 

This temple had been begun by the elder Tar- 
quin. His workmen, in digging the fovmdation, 
had come across a human head. This the avigur 
said was a sign that Rome would become the capi- 
tal, or head city, of the world. 

After this that part of Rome where the temple 
stood was called the Cap'-i-to-line Hill, and the 
temple was the Capitol, or meeting place, of the 
Senate. 



116 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

A few years later, on account of his wicked 
deeds, the people voted to banish Tarquin and to do 
away with the office of king. 

Then the assembly of the centuries elected two 
men, called consuls, to carry on the government. 




Junius Brutus, the First Consul. 

Brutus and Collatinus were chosen as the first 
consuls; but Collatinus himself being of the Tar- 
quin family, resigned, and Publius Va-le'-ri-us was 
chosen in his place. 



ROME 117 

Tarquin prevailed on the Etruscan people to 
bring war on the Romans. In the battle that fol- 
lowed, Brutus and Aruns, the king's son, met. 
Both were on horseback, and with leveled spears 
they rode straight at each other. Both fell dead, 
pierced through their breasts. The Etruscans fled 
soon after. 

Tarquin next obtained the help of Lars Por'- 
se-na, the King of Clusium. They came to Rome 
so suddenly with an arm}^ that the Romans had no 
time to muster their soldiers. Valerius decided to 
destroy the bridge, as the only way of keeping the 
enemy out of the city. But the foe had to be held 
back while workmen with axes and levers cut down 
the bridge. Horatius Co'-cles was the first to vol- 
unteer. Nearly everybody at some time of life hears 
the story of "Horatius at the Bridge." This is told 
in stirring verse in one of Lord Macaula^^'s "Lays 
of Ancient Rome," much as it was told, probably, 
in old Latin songs of the people. Perhaps the Ro- 
man writers, when they first wrote the history of 
their great city, gathered much of the earlier nar- 
ratives from old, unwritten songs. 



Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, 
With all the speed ye may ; 

I with two more to help me 
Will hold the foe in play. 



118 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

In yon straight path a thousand 
May well be stopped by three ; 

Now who will stand on either hand 
And hold the bridge with me? 

Spu'-ri-us Lar'-tius and Ti'-tus Her-min'-i-us 
ran to him quickly, and the three crossed to the 
Etruscan end of the bridge. 

Could three men keep back an army? Yes; 
the roadway was so narrow that only three men 
could walk abreast on it. Three Etruscans ad- 
vanced to give battle, but the Romans killed them 
all. In the meantime the bridge began to crack 
and tremble. Horatius sent his two companions 
back, while he remained alone. 

As the bridge fell he leaped into the river wdth 
all his armor on and swam safely to the other side. 
With shouts of joy they drew him from the water. 
The Senate voted him as much land as he could 
plow around in a day, and his statue was placed in 
a public square, with the story of his heroic deed 
engraved upon it. 

The Romans tried in various ways to kill Tar- 
quin. Once a noble youth named Ca'-ius Mu'-cius 
went to his camp to stab him. It happened that 
the king's secretary was paying out money to the 
soldiers. Mucins, thinking that this was the king, 
struck him dead. 

The Roman was at once seized and dragged be- 
fore Tarquin, who ordered him to confess the plot 



ROME 119 

or be burned to death. Mucius stretched out his 
right hand and held it in an altar-fire that was burn- 
ing in the room until it was nearly burned off. 

" Do you think," he said, " that all your tortures 
can make a brave man tell his secret? " 

The king was astonished at his courage and set 
him free. Then Mucius said: 

" There are three hundred young Romans who 
have sworn to kill you. My lot came first, and I 
have failed; but some one will succeed." 

In the next battle the Romans were badly de- 
feated, but at the battle of Lake Regillus they 
were successful. After this the Latin and Etrus- 
can cities refused to help Tarquin. His sons were 
all dead, and he was old, so he went to a Greek 
city in the south of Italy, where he died. Ever 
after his time the Romans hated the very name of 
king. 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC 

PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS 

The many wars against Tarquin had been very 
hard on the poorer plebeians, who had to do the 
fighting and to pay the larger amount of the tax. 
Their farms were plundered, and they had to bor- 
row money of the rich patricians to buy tools and 
cattle, and to pay the tax. 

When the plebeians could not pay their debts, 
the patricians could beat them, sell them as slaves, 
and even put them to death. The only one who 
could protect them was the consul; but as the con- 
suls were always patricians, there was no help or 
mercy from them. 

One day an old man, a plebeian, dressed in rags, 
screaming and calling for help, rushed into the 
market-place. To the crowd that gathered around 
him he said: 

" I was born free; I served my full time in the 
army in my youth, fought in twenty-eight battles, 
and have often received testimonials of bravery in 
the wars. But in the troublous times which came 
upon the city I was obliged to get into debt to pay 
taxes that were levied upon me, because my farm 
was laid waste and my property destroyed. Then, 
when I could not pay my debts, I was seized as a 
slave by my creditors, with my two sons. My mas- 

120 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC 121 

ter laid hard tasks upon me, and when I refused 
to do them I was beaten with many stripes." 

And then the poor old plebeian showed his 
breast seamed with the scars of battle, and his back 
covered with blood. 

Once, when the VoF-scians invaded Rome, the 
plebeians refused to fight until the patricians 
agreed not to put them in prison for debt any 
more. But when the war was over everything was 
as bad as before. Then the plebeians marched 
in a body out of the city to a hill a short distance 
from Rome, and resolved to build a new city for 
themselves. 

The patricians could not have their best soldiers 
leave when there were so many enemies about, so 
they allowed two men to be chosen, to be called 
tribunes, who should have the power to forbid 
any law or any decision of a judge that was cruel 
or unjust to the plebeians. 

This satisfied the plebeians, and they returned 
to Rome. 

Another just cause for complaint on the part 
of the plebeians was that there were no written 
laws. No one but the patricians knew what the 
laws were. When a poor plebeian was brought be- 
fore a patrician judge, you may imagine that the 
patrician would generally find that the law was not 
on the side of the plebeian. 

At last it was decided to have the laws written. 



122 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Two men were sent to Athens to study the good 
laws made by Solon and Clisthenes. When they 
returned, ten more men were appointed, and these 
twelve ^^Tote out the laws. 

These laws were engraved on brass plates and 
set up in the forum, or market-place, where every 
Roman could see them. Every schoolboy was 
obliged to commit them to memory. These laws 
were the source of all future laws. They were like 
our Con-sti-tu'-tion. There are traces of them 
today in all the countries of Europe and America. 
Just as Greece gave us the best poetry and art, 
Rome gave us the best laws. 

THE WARS IX ITALY 

In the early days of Rome, Italy was occupied 
by many different races and tribes. Just north of 
the Tiber were the Etruscans, who, after the kings 
were driven from Rome, became enemies of that 
city. On the east were the Ae'-qui-ans and Sam'- 
nites, and on the south were the Volscians and 
Her-ni'-cians. 

In the far north, in the valley of the river Po, 
lived the Gauls, a wild and savage race. With all 
of these nations Rome fought long and bitter wars. 
In the end she conquered all of them, and ruled 
over the entire peninsula from the Alps to the 
Mediterranean Sea. 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC 123 

THE PUNIC \\ Alls 

Oil the iiorthern shore of Africa lay the city of 
Carthage. It has already been mentioned as a 
colony of Tyre. It was a great and fioiu'ishing 
city. It had a population of seven hundred thou- 
sand, and commerce had made it the richest city 
in the world. For maiw years there had been w^ar 
between Carthage and the Greek city of Syracuse 
in Sicily. Rome then took part in this war. As 
Carthage had a strong navy it was necessary to 
build ships to fight it. 

Up to that time the Romans had fought all 
their wars on land and had not needed ships. They 
took as a model a Carthaginian vessel that had been 
wrecked on their coast, and soon they had a fleet 
of one hundred and twxnty ships. These ships 
were propelled by oars. The rowers sat on long 
benches, one above the other. The war vessels had 
five banks of oars, and could be moved very fast. 
There was a sharp beak in the prow of each ship, 
and the mode of fighting was to strike the hostile 
ship with this beak and sink it. 

In the first battle the Romans lost. Then Du- 
il'-i-us, the admiral, had a long bridge made to 
board the enemy. This bridge was fastened at 
one end to the deck of the vessel. The other end 
had a long iron spike on its under side, and was 
held up by ropes passing through the mast. 



124 



OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 



When a Roman ship came alongside the enemy 
it let fall the boarding-bridge. The spike held it 
to the deck of the enemy. Then the soldiers rushed 
over the bridge, and a hand-to-hand fight took place 
in which the Romans easily conquered. 

For twenty-three years the war went on. At 
last the Romans won a great victory near the coast 
of Sicily, and Carthage was forced to make peace. 




Roman Ship in Battle. 

She gave Rome all her possessions in Sicily, and 
paid a large amount of money in addition. 

There were three wars with Carthage. We 
call them the Punic wars, because the Latin name 
for Carthaginian was Pu'-ni-cus, a word which 
means the same as Phoenician. You will remem- 
ber that the people of Tyre who settled at Carthage 
were Phoenicians. 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC 125 

The great general of Carthage in the second 
Punic war was Han'-ni-bal. He was one of the 
four generals of the world who are thought to 
be the greatest: Csesar, Napoleon, Hannibal, and 
Alexander. His father, Hamilcar, had built up a 
strong empire in Spain. From that country they 
meant to attack Italy. 

To traverse Spain, to cross the Pyrenees Moun- 
tains, then to go eastward and climb over the Alps, 
and thus to enter Italy at the north end and ad- 
vance southward to Rome, was a plan astonishing 
in its boldness, and is one of the wonders of history. 

In 219 B. c. Hannibal led an army across the 
Alps into northern Italy. There he was joined by 
the Gauls, who hated Rome. The Roman general 
Scip'-i-o had gone to Spain to attack Hannibal, and 
he was astonished to learn that the Carthaginian 
was on the march for Italy. 

Hannibal's first victory at the river Tre'-bi-a 
showed his skill as a general. He sent his cavalry 
across the river to attack the Romans. After a 
short fight they pretended to run. The Roman 
general ordered his army to pursue. The Romans 
waded through the icy water and followed the re- 
treating enemy. In a few moments they found 
themselves surrounded. Hannibal had concealed 
his men until the Romans were in the trap, then 
he attacked them and killed them all. 

At Lake Tras-i-me'-nus Hannibal beat the 



126 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Romans again. At the battle of Cannae, the 
bloodiest of all, the Romans lost forty thousand 
men. 

Before the battle Hannibal and his officers rode 
to the top of a hill to see the field. One general, 
named Gisgo, said " The numbers of the Romans 
are wonderful." 

'' Yes," said Hannibal; " but there is one thing 
about them more wonderful than their numbers: 
in all that host there is not one man by the name 
of Gisgo." He meant that one man may be worth 
more than an army. 

It is said that after the battle Hannibal gath- 
ered up a bushel of gold rings from the bodies of 
the dead patricians. He sent them to Carthage 
as a sign of his great victory. 

Fabius was then the general chosen by Rome 
to oppose Hannibal. He received the name Cunc- 
ta'-tor, or Delayer, because he would not risk a 
battle, but tried to wear out his enemy by continual 
marching and by cutting off food and supplies. 

Soon Hannibal's army became so thinned by 
disease and famine that he sent to Spain for more 
men. 

He had left his brother Has'-dru-bal to com- 
mand in Spain. The two Roman brothers, Pub- 
lius and Gnae-us Scip'-i-o, had been sent against 
him; the latter fell in battle. The younger, 
Publius Scipio, then succeeded to the command and 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC 127 

soon drove Hasdrubal out of Spain. Hasdrubal 
passed through Gaul, now called France, and 
into Italy to the aid of his brother. But he was 
met by Claudius Nero, and his whole army was 
destroyed. 

One night a bloody head was thrown into Han- 
nibal's camp, in southern Italy. It was that of 
Hasdrubal, his brother. 

The Romans then sent Scipio into Africa with 
an army, and Hannibal had to follow him to de- 
fend Carthage. At Za'-ma he was defeated by the 
good generalship of Scipio. The second Punic 
war then came to an end. Spain was given to 
Rome, and Carthage was allowed to keep only 
twenty ships of war, and had to pay Rome $250,- 
000 every year for fifty years. Scipio received 
the surname Af-ri-ca'-nus, on account of his victory 
in Africa. 

Hannibal remained in Carthage and managed 
affairs so well that the city became strong again. 
Rome demanded that he be given up to them as a 
prisoner, but Hannibal fled from his native land 
to the court of An-ti'-o-chus, King of Syria, the 
successor of Se-leu'-cus, the general of Alexander. 
He became the adviser of Antiochus in his war 
against Rome, for the Romans made war on him 
for sheltering Hannibal. They defeated him at 
the battle of Mag-ne'-sia, and made him give up a 
large part of his empire. 



128 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Hannibal escaped, but at last he took poison to 
avoid being sent to Rome. 

Macedonia and Greece were also conquered 
about this time, and added to the empire of Rome. 

One man who became famous in these Eastern 
wars was Marcus Porcius Cato. He held the office 
of censor at Rome. It was his duty to appoint the 
senators, to keep a list of all the citizens and of their 
property, and to oversee the customs and morals of 
the people. If a senator did not behave well, Cato 
expelled him from the senate; and he put a tax on 
all those who wore jewels and had fine things. He 
said that the Romans spent too much money and 
lived too finely. 

Once Cato was sent on public business to Car- 
thage. He saw how rich and prosperous the city 
had grown, and feared that it might again become 
the rival of Rome. He advised his countrymen to 
destroy the city. Every speech he made in the 
senate after that closed with the words, " Carthage 
must be destroyed." 

Rome soon picked a quarrel with Carthage. 
The poor Carthaginians tried to avoid war. They 
gave up to Rome all their weapons and implements 
of war, and surrendered three hundred young men 
as hostages. But when the Roman general Scipio 
told them that their city by the sea must be pulled 
down, and that they must go inland to live, they 
became furious with despair. They set to work to 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC 



129 



make new arms and defenses. The women cut off 
their long hair to make bow-strings and gave up 
their jewels and other ornaments to aid in buying 
new weapons. 




The Women of Carthage. 



When the Roman army came Carthage was de- 
fended. Scipio blocked up the harbor and besieged 
it on every side. At last the Romans broke 
through the defenses and took the city. It was 



130 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

burned to the ground and never rebuilt. Some of 
the ruins may still be seen. 

Then Rome became the ruler of nearly all lands 
bordering on the Mediterranean Sea. Only Egypt, 
Syria, and some small states and barbarous tribes 
remained to be conquered. 

LAND TROUBLES AND THE CIA^IL WARS 

In the early days of the Republic the people of 
Italy were mostly farmers, who worked their own 
land. But after the wars with Hannibal and the 
conquest of foreign countries, the small farmers 
disappeared, and the land was held in large estates 
by rich nobles. They cultivated it with slaves 
brought to Rome from conquered countries and 
the free laborers were crowded out, many becom- 
ing idle. 

Two parties had grown up in Rome: one called 
the popular party, which favored the common peo- 
ple; another called the aristocratic party, which 
favored the nobles and the rich. 

In order to get the votes of the idle crowd, it 
became the custom to make them gifts of food and 
money. After a time they began to depend on the 
government to support them withovit work. 

The first attempts to cure this bad state of af- 
fairs were made by Tiberius and Caius Grac-chus, 
who are usually called the Gracchi. 

Tiberius was chosen tribune, and had a law 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC 131 

passed by which the pubHc lands, which were un- 
lawfully held by rich nobles, were given to the poor. 
Farms of fifteen acres each were given to eighty 
thousand Romans. 

This was a good law, because it gave the idle 
men at the capital a chance to work for their own 
living. But the nobles were so angry at Tiberius 
that a party of them set upon him in the street and 
beat him to death. 

Ten years later Caius Gracclius took up his 
brother's office and work. He tried to take aAvay 
the power of the Senate by putting in new mem- 
bers from the Knights, the second order of Roman 
citizens. But he, too, was killed by a mob led by 
the consul himself. 

This struggle betw^een the two political parties 
continued until the old Roman republic broke 
down, and a new empire ruled by one man was set 
up by Augustus Cassar. 

The next popular leader was Caius Marius, 
who was soon elected consul. A host of savages, 
called Cimbri and Teutones, were then threatening 
to invade Italy. Finally they did come, and Marius 
led his army against them. 

In three great battles he slew so many of them, 
that in after years the farmers made fences Avith 
their bones. 

When Marius returned to Rome a new war had 
broken out in Italy. 



132 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

The cities outside of Rome were called the 
Allies. Their people did not have the same rights 
as the people in Rome. They could not vote or 
hold office, and they began a war to have them- 
selves made Roman citizens. They were defeated, 
but only after they had obtained what they 
asked for. 

In this war, called the SociaJ War, a young 
patrician officer named Sulla won great success. 
He became the rival of Marius, and the wars of 
these two men for the next ten years took away 
the lives of thousands of innocent people. 

POM ^PEY 

The next great name in Roman history is 
Gnae'us Pompey, who received the surname Mag- 
nus, or The Great. He was sent to Spain to sub- 
due Ser-to'-ri-us, the last great friend of Marius. 
He succeeded, but only after Sertorius had been 
assassinated by his own officer. 

While Pompey was in Spain a dangerous up- 
rising of the gladiators, under the lead of Spar'-ta- 
cus, took place in Rome. The gladiators were men 
who were trained to fight in the circus for the 
amusement of the people. 

Spartacus gathered his men near Mount Ve- 
suvius. So many discontented people, runaway 
slaves, and pirates joined him that he soon had an 
army of one hundred thousand men. 



134 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

For two years they defied the Roman armies. 
Marcus Crassus, a rich senator, took command, and 
succeeded in scattering them. Pompey and Cras- 
sus were the most popular men at Rome, and were 
chosen consuls. 

Pompey then began his war against the pirates 
in the eastern Mediterranean, and in a few months 
cleared the sea of them. He also finished the third 
war against Mithradates, and added Syria to the 
empire. He captured Jerusalem and stood within 
the Jewish temple. He looked about, and was 
astonished that there was not a single image of 
a god. 

In the year 63 B.C. Marcus TuUius Cicero be- 
came consul. He loved the freedom of the repub- 
lic, and many a time helped to save it from its 
enemies. 

Cicero was the most famous orator of Rome. 
He was also the most polished and graceful writer. 
His speeches are read yet in every school where 
Latin is taught. 

During his consulship a dissolute young noble, 
Catiline, gathered an army of discontented and 
vicious men. He intended to burn Rome and 
seize the government; but Cicero discovered the 
plot, and the leaders were seized and put to death. 
Catiline escaped to his army outside the city, but 
was defeated and killed. 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC 135 

A new man had arisen in Rome. This was 
Caius JuHus Csesar. He had held several offices; 
he had been pontifex maximus, had been a judge, 
and a governor of Spain. On his return to Italy 
he joined Crassus and Pompey to form the first 
tri-um'-vi-rate, or three-man government. 

There had always been two consuls, but now 
there were to be three. When a consul's year of 
office was up, he was usually sent out to govern a 
province; he was then called "proconsul." Such 
an office was very profitable. The governor had 
to pay a certain amount of tax to the public treas- 
ury; but all he could get out of his province above 
that sum was his own. So it was easy for a prc- 
consul to become rich. 

Cassar received the province of Gaul to govern 
for five years. When he received it only the south- 
ern part was under the power of Rome; but dur- 
ing the next four years Cassar subdued the whole 
country from the Pyrenees Mountains to the Eng- 
lish Channel and the Rhine. He twice invaded 
Britain to punish that people for assisting the Gauls 
against him. He drove back the German tribes 
who had crossed the Rhine into Gaul. He sub- 
dued a rebellion of all the Gallic tribes under Ver- 
cin-get'-o-rix. Caesar made this chief a prisoner, 
and exhibited him in his triumphal procession at 
Rome. 



136 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Caesar remained eight years in Gaul. He had 
made it into an orderly, well-governed province. 
The people soon learned the Latin language, as 
that was used in trade and in the schools which were 
established. There were sixty tribes, each with its 




Julius Caesar. 

own language, but soon there was only one. To- 
day Gaul is called France, but the French language 
is in many ways like the Latin, the language of 
Cgesar. 

During Caesar's wars Crassus died, but Pom- 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC ] ;37 

pey continued to rule Italy. He was jealous of 
Cassar, and when the Senate ordered both of them 
to give up their commands, Pompey refused. 

Csesar did not think his life safe if he yielded 
to Pompey. He had his army drawn up on the 
banks of the river Rubicon, that separated his prov- 
ince from Italy. When he found that Pompey 
was determined to remain unlawfully in office, he 
exclaimed, " The die is cast! " and led his army into 
Italy. Pompey fled into Greece. Csesar soon sub- 
dued Italy. He then led his army against Pom- 
pey, and defeated him at Phar'-sa-lus. Pompey 
fled to Egypt, where he was murdered. A last 
battle was won by Cccsar at Thap'-sa-cus, in Africa. 
Cato fell upon his sword at Utica, and the Roman 
republic died with him, for Julius Csesar was then 
the ruler of the world. 

But many Romans were jealous of Csesar. 
Some loved the old republic, and when it was hinted 
that Csesar desired to be made king, the old hatred 
of the name of king rose up. 

Caius Cassius had been refused an office by 
Csesar. He gathered a number of men about him, 
and they resolved to kill the tyrant, as they called 
Caesar. Marcus Brutus and Decimus Brutus were 
among the conspirators. IVIark Antony was a firm 
friend of Csesar, and some of the plotters wanted 
to kill both at the same time; but Brutus objected 
to this. 



138 



OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 



One day the Senate met in a theater built by 
Poinpey in the Field of Mars. While one of the 
conspirators presented a paper for Caesar to read, 
Casca, from behind, struck him in the neck with 
his dagger. Then the others stabbed him, and. 




Mark Antony at Caesar's Funeral. 

pierced with twenty-three wounds, Csesar fell dead 
at the foot of Pompey's statue. 

A public funeral was held for Casar, and An- 
tony read his will, which gave all his wealth to the 
people. "This," said Antony, "was a Csesar, 



TJIE ROMAN REPUBLIC DJU 

When comes there such another?" The people 
were so enraged that they drove the murderers from 
Rome. Antony and Oc-ta'-vi-us Csesar seized the 
government. Octavius was Caesar's nephew, but 
had been adopted as his son and heir. These two 
associated with them Lepidus, who was in command 
of the army, and thus formed the second trium- 
virate. 

Cassius, Brutus, and their friends fled to INIace- 
donia, where they mustered an army. But the tri- 
umvirate defeated them at the battle of Phi'-lip-pi, 
and both Brutus and Cassius committed suicide. 

The three then divided the world among them. 
Lepidus was soon robbed of his share, and a con- 
test arose between Octavius and Antony. Antony 
had married Octavia, the sister of Octavius, but he 
deserted her to marry Cle-o-pa'-tra, the beautiful 
Queen of Egypt. Angry at this insult, Octavius 
began war, and crushed Antony in a naval battle in 
the bay of Ac'-ti-um, on the west coast of Greece. 

Thus Octavius became the emperor of the 
Roman world. The Senate recognized him as em- 
peror, and gave him the title of Augustus. The 
temple of Janus was closed, for the civil wars were 
over, and the Roman empire began 27 B.C. 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE 

Although we call Augustus Emperor, he did 
not have that title. He was careful not to call him- 
self king, or to behave in any way like one. 

Julius Caesar had been killed because it was 
thought he had wished to make himself king. 
Augustus was called prince, which then meant 
merely the chief citizen. He was made com- 
mander of the army, tribune, and judge, so that 
he had all the power that a king could have. 

The assemblies of the people were done away 
with, but the Senate was kej)t up. The prince and 
the Senate governed the empire. 

ar-min'-i-us 

Augustus had already conquered part of Ger- 
many, but he wanted to take possession of another 
part, which lay between the Rhine and the Elbe 
rivers. This would give him a boundary for his 
empire which could be more easily defended. The 
Roman governor of Germany was Lu'-cius Va'- 
rus, a brave man and a good soldier; but he did 
not know what terrible fighters the wild German 
tribes were. 

The chief of the Che-rus'-ci, a German tribe, 
was Arminius, or Hermann. He had been a sol- 
dier in the Roman army, but he decided to fight for 

140 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE 141 

his people when he learned that the Romans were 
taking away their freedom or driving them from 
their houses. 

When his warriors were ready, Hermann sent 
word to Varus that the Germans were going to 
revolt. As Varus was leading his army through 
the dark paths of the Teu'-to-berg forest, he was 
suddenly assailed on all sides by the fierce German 
warriors. 

For three days the Romans struggled on, but 
they could not escape, and were slain to the last 
man. 

When the terrible news reached Augustus he 
was so stricken with grief that for several days he 
did nothing but walk about, exclaiming, " O Varus, 
give me back my legions! " 

A few years afterwards, Ger-man'-i-cus, an- 
other brave Roman general, took vengeance on the 
Germans, and brought back to Rome the flags and 
standards of Varus's army; but no attempt was 
made to keep the land. The Rhine and the Dan- 
ube rivers were made the boundaries of the empire 
on the north. It was tlie first time the Romans 
had ever given up land that they had once occupied. 

Augustus lived only five years after this mis- 
fortune, dying in 14 a.d. Thus he reigned from 
27 B.C. to 14 A.D., forty-one years in all. You will 
notice that the Christian era began in his reign. 
The year of the birth of Christ should be called 



142 



OLD AVORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 



the year 1 ; but an error of four years was made 
in fixing the time of His birth, so that we have to 
say now that He was born 4 B.C. 

The reign of Augustus is often called the Au- 
gustan Age. It was a time when many poets, 




Vergil Reading to His Friends. 

historians, and philosophers lived. Vergil, Horace, 
and the historian, Livy, were friends of the Em- 
peror. Much was done in art and building. Au- 
gustus so improved the capital that he said, " I 
found Rome brick, but I have left it marble." 

Augustus was succeeded by his stepson Ti-be'- 
ri-us, a good soldier, who ruled well for fifteen years. 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE 143 

Then he grew gloomy and suspicious, and was 
afraid that he woukl be murdered. He put many 
to death who were unjustly accused of treason. At 
last he retired to private life, and put the govern- 
ment into the hands of his general, Se-ja'-nus. 
Sejanus plotted and was strangled in prison. 

We pass over the reigns of many emperors who 
ruled Rome from 31 to 48 B. C. Vespasian was 
engaged in a war against Judea when he received 
notice of his election. 

VESPASIAN AND TITUS 

Leaving his son Titus to finish the war, he 
returned to Rome and took charge of the govern- 
ment. 

For ten years peace and good government pre- 
vailed throughout the empire. Titus captured the 
famous Jewish capital after a six-months' siege. 
The Jews defended it with great bravery, but it was 
taken and burned to the ground. The gold and 
silver vessels used in the services of the temple were 
brought to Rome. 

A grand triumph was given to Titus, and a 
splendid arch was built in memory of his victory. 
Carved in relief upon the arch one may still see 
the trumpets and vessels brought from Jerusalem, 
and the seven-branched candlestick which stood in 
the Holy of Holies, or inner temple. 

Vespasian and his son Titus built the most 



144 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

famous building that still remains to remind us 
of the grandeur of Rome. This was the Col-os- 
se'-um, or Fla'-vi-an Am-phi-the'-a-ter, so called 
from the family name of the builders. It could 
accommodate eighty thousand people, and was 
used for the amusements which the Roman emper- 
ors gave the people. When it was dedicated, or 
first opened, it is said that five thousand wild beasts 
were killed in the arena by the trained gladiators. 
Then there was chariot racing and an exhibition of 
naval warfare, for the great arena could be turned 
into a lake large enough for ships to sail on. 

pom-pe'-i-i and her-cu-la'-ne-um 

But the most wonderful event in the reign of 
Titus was one with which he had nothing to do. 
The old Romans thought that a great giant had 
been buried under Mount Vesuvius, and that when 
he grew tired and turned over the mountain would 
thunder and the lightning and smoke would dart 
out of its summit. But for many centuries the 
giant had lain still. The sloping sides of the 
mountain were covered with green fields and vine- 
yards, dotted here and there with the country places 
of the rich Romans. Two fine and well-built cities, 
Pompeii and Herculaneum, had grown up near the 
Bay of Naples. 

But in the year 79, in the reign of Titus, 



146 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

without any warning the whole top of the moun- 
tain blew off, and great showers of stones and 
ashes rained down upon the surrounding country. 
Streams of melted rock ran down the mountain 
side, burning and destroying the homes of rich and 
poor, while poisonous gases suiFocated those who 
had escaped the stones and lava. The two cities 
were buried so deep that for centuries all trace of 
them was lost. 

In 1713, while some workmen were digging a 
well in Naples, they came to a paved street. Fur- 
ther search showed that a whole buried city had 
been discovered. Many of the houses and temples 
of Pompeii have been uncovered, and we are able 
to see just how the old Romans lived. A prison 
was found, and the skeleton of a Roman sentinel 
in armor, still standing on guard, tells of the stern 
discipline enforced in the days of Rome. 

Titus had a kindly and generous disposition, 
although he had been a stern commander in time 
of war. Once, when at evening he could not recall 
some good action done, he exclaimed, " I have lost 
a day!" 

We may learn this excellent precept from him: 
"Do not let a day pass without doing some good 
thing." 

Do-mi'-tian, the brother of Titus, succeeded 
him; but he was just as bad as Titus had been good. 

Then came the five good emperors: Ner'-va, 



148 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Tra'-jan, Ha'-dri-an, An-to-ni'-nus, and Mar'-cus 
Au-re'-lius. 

All of these emperors persecuted the Christians, 
who were regarded as a mischievous sect because 
they taught that all the gods of Rome were false, 
and that the God they worshiped was the only true 
God. 

Hadrian is noted for the wall which he built in 
Britain to defend the colony against the wild tribes 
on the north. 

In the reign of Marcus Aurelius the German 
tribe of the Mar'-co-man'-ni invaded the empire, 
and it was all the armies could do to keep back 
these fierce fighters. 

DIOCLETIAN AND CONSTANTINE 

We pass over the reigns of twenty or more 
emperors, who are of little interest to us. But in 
the year 284 a.d. a great ruler, Di-o-cle'-tian, came 
to the throne. He saw that the empire was too 
large to be ruled by one man, and wisely divided 
it into two, the Eastern Empire and the Western 
Empire. 

He chose Max-im'-i-an to rule over the western 
half, with his capital at Milan, in northern Italy. 
Diocletian ruled the eastern half, and had his capi- 
tal at Nic-o-me'-di-a. 

Each emperor chose an assistant, who was called 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE 



149 



a Csesar. It was the duty of the Caesar to look 
out for the distant parts of the empire, and see that 




The Vision of Constantine. 



the taxes were collected and order kept. In case 
the emperor died, the Csesar was to become the next 



150 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

emperor. In this way disputes about the succes- 
sion to the throne would be avoided. 

The plan of Diocletian was not followed after 
his death. The man he had made Csesar, Con- 
stan'-ti-us, succeeded him. But when Constantius 
died the soldiers chose his son Constantine to be the 
next emperor of the West. A series of bloody 
civil wars followed. There were six who claimed 
the throne, but Constantine crushed them all, and 
became the sole emperor of the West in 306. He 
was given the surname The Great. 

The most important thing to remember about 
Constantine is that he made Christianity the religion 
of the empire. He was led to do this by a strange 
vision that came to him in the midst of his wars. 
He was standing among his officers one day in the 
field, when suddenly the sky was lighted up by a 
cross of fire. Below the cross he saw the words in 
Greek, " By this sign conquer." 

That very night he dreamed that Christ stood 
before him in shining garments bearing a cross, 
and said: 

" If you make this your standard I will lead 
you to victory." 

Constantine at once declared himself a Chris- 
tian. He had his banner made in the shape of a 
cross with the name of Christ inscribed upon it. 

The persecution of Christians then ceased, and 
the temples of the heathen gods were changed into 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE 151 

Christian churches. A later emperor, named Julian, 
tried to bring back the old religion, but his attempt 
failed. Missionaries were sent out, and the prov- 
inces were converted to the religion of Christ. 

Constantine then determined to found a new 
capital which should be more conveniently situated. 
He chose the city then called By-zan'-ti-um, on the 
Bos'-po-rus. He enlarged and rebuilt it, naming 
it Con-stan-ti-no'-ple, or the City of Constantine. 

He commenced building the church of St. 
Sophia, which became the most splendid Christian 
temple in the world at that time. 

In 325 a meeting of all the bishops of the 
Church was held at Ni-cae'-a. They drew up the 
Nicene Creed, which contains the doctrine that all 
Christians believe. 

Soon after the death of Constantine the empire 
was again divided into eastern and western divi- 
sions. Va'-lens ruled the Eastern Empire, at Con- 
stantinople, and Val-en-tin'-i-an the Western, at 
Milan. 

At this time the powerful tribe of the Goths had 
their empire north of the Danube and along the 
Black Sea. They were attacked by the Huns, a 
Tartar tribe, who were moving westward. 

These Huns were the most terrible savages that 
ever invaded Europe. They were filthy in their 
habits, and their short, thick bodies and small, 
fierce eyes were repulsive to look upon. They rode 



152 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

small, strong horses, and seldom dismounted even 
to sleep. The Goths fled before them across the 
Danube, and Valens gave them the province of 
]Moe'-si-a to live in. They afterwards attacked and 
killed Valens and defeated his army in the battle 
of A-dri-an-op'-o-lis. 

ALARIC THE GOTH 

The Western emperor Gra'-tian checked the 
Goths and enlisted many of them in his army. His 
general, The-o-do'-si-us, became the last great ruler 
of the whole Roman Empire. At his death he 
again divided it between his two sons, Ar-ca'-di-us 
and Ho-no'-ri-us ; the latter ruled the West. His 
general, Stil'-i-cho, was the most noted man of the 
time. The Vis'-i-goths (Western Goths) had again 
gathered under their king, AF-a-ric. They ravaged 
Greece and then marched for Italy, but they were 
beaten by Stilicho in two battles and forced to 
retire. But soon there came another Gothic army 
into Italy, and again Stilicho saved the empire by 
defeating them and killing their general. 

The foolish Honorius thought that his brave 
general was planning to seize the empire, and 
caused him to be murdered. When Alaric came 
again with his Goths, in 408, there was no one 
strong enovigh to defend Italy. Alaric besieged 
Rome. The terrified Senate sent messengers to ask 
his terms. 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE 153 

" I will take all your gold and silver, your mov- 
able property, and your slaves," said Alaric. 

" What, then, do you leave us? " asked the mes- 
sengers. 

" I leave you your lives," replied the Goth. 

Twice again Alaric came to Rome. The last 
time he took the city by assault, and gave it to 
his soldiers to plunder. He then passed on to the 
south of Italy, where he died. His burial was a 
strange one: the river Busento was turned out of 
its course, and the young king was buried in the 
bed of the stream. The river was then restored to 
its former channel, and the slaves who did the work 
were put to death, that no one might know the 
place of his burial. 

ATTILA THE HUN 

In the meantime a more terrible enemy than 
Goth or Vandal had appeared in Europe. This 
was At'-til-a the Hun, whose name inspired terror 
wherever it was heard. He was called the Scourge 
of God. His banner was a sword set on the end of 
a pole. So dreadful was the devastation wrought 
by these savages that Attila boasted that where 
once his horse had trod the grass never grew again. 

Attila set out from Hungary, where he had 
established his kingdom, with half a million follow- 
ers, saying that he would never stop until he reached 
the sea. 



154 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

The German tribes of the West joined with the 
Roman general A-e'-tius to oppose them. The 
armies met on the plain of Chalons, in eastern Gaul. 
It was a long and terrible battle, but in the end 
Aetius won, and the boastful Attila retreated with 
a loss of three hundred thousand men. The next 
year Attila died after an unsuccessful attempt to 
invade Italy. 

The Western Empire was held together a few 
years longer by Ric'-i-mer, a Goth, who commanded 
the hired German soldiers in the Roman army. 
Then another leader of hired soldiers, Orestes, 
made his son, a boy of six years, emperor, and gave 
him the title of Romulus Augustulus. 

The army had grown tired of camp life, and 
they demanded that one-third of the lands in Italy 
be given to them for homes. When Orestes re- 
fused this they mutinied under the lead of O-do- 
a'-cer. The little Augustulus was retired to a coun- 
try villa, and Odoacer became King of Italy. Every 
part of the Western Empire, Spain, Gaul, Africa, 
and Italy, was then ruled by kings of the Teutonic 
race. 

Odoacer sent the crown, the scepter, and the 
purple robe of Augustulus to Zeno, the Eastern 
emperor at Constantinople, as a sign that the West- 
ern Empire had passed away. Out of its various 
divisions came the new nations, France, Germany, 
Spain, Italy, and Great Britain. 



C3- 

o 
3 

W 
3 



C/2 

P 
*^ 

P 
Q 




MEDIAEVAL HISTORY 



XII. THE BARBARIAN INVADERS 

On the northern boundary of the Roman Em- 
pire there was a vast stretch of country inhabited 
by many wild tribes. 

The Romans gave little attention to these peo- 
ple except to beat them back when they invaded 
the Roman lands. But the time came when the 
empire grew weak and the barbarians grew strong. 
Then they swarmed over the Roman boundaries 
and divided the old empire among themselves. 

With the exception of At'-ti-la and his Huns, 
these invaders belonged to the Teu-ton'-ic, or Ger- 
man'-ic, race. They were a tall, strong people, 
with light hair and eyes that Tac'-i-tus says were 
'^fiercely blue.'' Tacitus was a Roman who wrote 
a book about the Germans. Julius Csesar also tells 
us about them in his account of his wars in Gaul. 

The Germans lived in villages and were ruled 
by chiefs. A collection of villages was called a 
hundred. The hundred was ruled by a count, or 
chief of high rank. The whole tribe was ruled by 
a king. The people were farmers and raised cat- 

157 



158 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

tie, but hunting and war were their favorite occu- 
pations. 

When a new chief was to be elected, all the 
warriors met together. If a man was proposed 
whom they favored, they beat their weapons to- 
gether with a great noise. When the chief was 
chosen, they raised him up on their shields and took 
him to his tent. The warriors were greatly at- 
tached to their chiefs. They followed them to war ; 
and when land and goods were taken from the 
enemy, the chief divided them among his men. 

Most of the men in a German tribe were free. 
But prisoners taken in war became the slaves of 
their captors. None but freemen might carry 
weapons or go to war. 

Before they became Christians, these nations 
were heathen. They worshiped many gods, which 
in some ways were like the Greek and Roman gods. 
The king of their gods was Wo'-den, or O'-din. 
He was the god of the sky, and was said to ride 
through the air on a swift horse called Sleip'-nir. 
Two ravens perched upon his shoulders and told 
him all that happened in the vv^orld. 

Woden was the god of the warrior. His home, 
Val-hal'-la, the German heaven, was hung with 
swords, shields, and glittering weapons. His maid- 
ens were the Val-ky'-ries. When a brave warrior 
died, the Valkyries carried him to Valhalla, so that 
it was peopled by a multitude of heroes. 




A \alkvrie ('Mrrying a Slain AVarrior to \alhalla. 



160 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Every morning Odin led his brave warriors out 
to battle. At night they returned and feasted, and 
drank the mead, or liquor, that the god himself 
liked best. 

Thor, the god of thunder, was the son of 
Woden. He rode in a chariot drawn by goats, 
and had a hammer which came back to his hand 
every time he threw it. This glittering hammer 
darting through the air was the lightning. The 
crashing sound of the hammer as it smote the ene- 
mies of Thor, or shattered the ice mountains where 
they lived, was the thunder. 

Ti'-eu was, like Mars, a god of war. He was 
armed with a sword. It was Tieu's sword that 
Attila believed he had found, and which he made 
his standard in battle. 



XIII. CLOVIS 

We have read how the German tribes under 
O-do-a'-cer overthrew the Roman Empire in Italy. 
Twelve years afterwards, in 489, The-od'-o-ric, 
King of the Os'-tro-goths (East Goths) , led a great 
army with their families and goods into Italy. He 
overthrew Odoacer and set up a kingdom of his 
own. 

Another race of Teutons called the Franks, or 
freemen, lived along the east bank of the Rhine. 
In the year 481 a youthful king named Clo'-vis 
became their leader. The Franks had always 
looked with longing eyes across the Rhine upon 
the cultivated fields and fine cities of Gaul. The 
merits and generous conduct of Clovis soon led 
other tribes to join him. Whatever he won in 
battle was thrown together in one great pile and 
was divided among his soldiers, the king sharing 
equally with them. 

The Romans still held the province of Northern 
Gaul, and Clovis decided to drive them out and 
make it his own kingdom. He led his men against 
the Roman governor, Sy-a'-gri-us, and defeated 
him. Syagrius fled and Clovis took possession of 
Sois'-sons, the capital of the province. Afterwards 
he moved his couii; to a village of clay huts on the 

161 



162 «J> in]iaj> STEPS TV> AMEKICjlX hktoky 

Seine. whiA has grown into the beautiful dty of 
Paris. This part of Gaul became known as France 
or the land of the Franks, Thus Cloris founded 
c»e of the great modem nations of the world. 

During this campaign agaiust Syagrius an in- 
cident occurred that shows the rough manners of 
these Frankish tribes and tells us somethinor about 
the kind of man Clovis was. 

Some of his soldiers had carried away from one 
of tiie diurches at Rheiois a beautiful vase, which 
the bi^K)p entreated Clovis to return as a special 
favor to him. Accordingly when the spoils were 
divided Clovis asked his men to set aside the vase 
for himself. 

A soldier standing by exclaimed. * Xever shall 
you have more than your just share I " And as he 
spoke he broke the vase to pieces with a blow of 
his ax. 

Clovis o^ncealed his anger for the time, and 
said not a word. A year afterwards when he was 
reviewing his soldiers he approadied the one who 
had insulted him. Taking the man's weapon he 
threw it upon the ground, chiding him for not 
keeping it in better condition. As the soldier 
stooped to pick it up. Clovis blattered his skull with 
Mie blow, exclaiming; " Thus didst thou with the 
vase at Soissons I " 

Clovis married Clo-til'-de, niece of Gun '-do- 
bald, the Kin or of Burcrundv. ClotOde was a Chns- 



CLOVIS 



163 



tian, and did all in her power to convert her pagan 
husband and his people to her own rehgion. 

Clovis was not satisfied with the extent of his 
new kingdom, and he soon made war on the Al'-e- 
man-ni. another German tribe living along the 




Thus Di, 



tiio'j wi: 



\.^^ 



at ^oisjohs '. 



upper Rhine. It must be remembered that these 
Germans thought the most honorable way to get 
an}i:liing was to take it by war. It was thought 
a disgrace to get anything peacefully when it 
could be obtained bv a fair fii:rht. 



164 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

The Alemanni were stubborn fighters and three 
times they drove Clovis from the field. Then the 
king thought of the God that Clotilde had told him 
about, and he prayed earnestly for victory to Clo- 
tilde's God. At the next charge of the Franks they 
swept the Alemanni from the field. 

When Clovis returned home he announced to 
his people that he had become a Christian. He or- 
dered all heathen gods and temples to be broken 
down, and on Christmas day he and three thou- 
sand of his warriors were baptized by the arch- 
bishop in the church at Rheims. 

When Clovis died, his kingdom was divided 
among his four sons. Their descendants continued 
to rule France for a century. Then in 613 the 
whole kingdom was united under Clo-taire'. His 
son, Dag'-o-bert, was a worthless king, and a man 
named Pip'-in was made mayor of the palace. 
This mayor was the real king. A descendant of 
Pipin, known as Pipin the Short, retired the '' do- 
nothing " king to his country place and made him- 
self the founder of a new line of kings. The great- 
est of this line was Char-le-magne' who in 811 be- 
came king of all the Franks. 




The Baptism of Clovis. 



XIV. THE BEGINNING OF ENGLAND 

In the Lowlands along the North Sea between 
the Rhine and the Elbe and on the peninsula of 
Jutland lived the Sax'-ons, An'-gles, and Jutes. 
These were German tribes like the Franks and 
Goths. They became good sailors on account of 
their situation, and often made voyages to Britain 
and along the coast of Europe. Like their brother 
tribes, they lived by war and plunder, and they 
soon became the terror of the Britons living along 
the eastern coast. 

The Roman army had long protected their 
British colony against the sea robbers. But in 410 
Ho-no'-ri-us, the Roman emperor, called his sol- 
diers awa/ from Britain to guard Italy against 
invasion. Then the Jutes, the Saxons, and the 
Angles swarmed over into Britain. Two chiefs of 
the Jutes named Hengist and Horsa are said to 
liave been the first comers. They soon drove out 
the Britons and took possession of the larger part 
of the island. Some of the Britons escaped into 
Wales and Cornwall, where their descendants con- 
tinue to live. 

The Britons had long before this been con- 
verted to Christianity by the Romans, and a Chris- 
tian king in Wales fought bravely to save his coun- 
try from the heathen invaders. 

166 



THE BEGINNING OF ENGLAND 167 

This king" was Arthur, about whom many tales 
are told. He is said to have lived in a splendid 
palace at Car'-le-on in Wales where he gathered 
about him many brave knights. Twelve of these 
are known as the " Knights of the Round Table." 
They were wont to go out in search of adventures, 
chaining up wicked giants, protecting the helpless, 
and driving back the heathen. 

While Arthur and his knights were warring 
against the Saxons, a Christian priest, St. Patrick, 
was converting the wild Irish tribes, baptizing 
thousands of them. He founded churches and 
schools, where young men were trained to become 
missionaries. They were then sent out to teach 
the faith to the Picts in Scotland and to the Gauls 
across the English channel. 

The Saxons and their brother tribes built up 
seven kingdoms in Britain. These were united into 
one by King Egbert of Wessex, who began to 
reign in 802. Egbert was the first to be called 
King of England. Long before this the Saxons 
also had been converted to Christianity. By Sax- 
ons we mean all the Germanic tribes in Britain. It 
is strange that although the greater part of the 
invaders were Saxons, it was the Angles who gave 
a name to the new country — An'-gle-land, or Eng- 
land. 

Pope Gregory the Great, while he was yet a 
priest, was attracted by the fair faces of some 



THE BEGINNING OF ENGLAND 169 

Angle children who were exjiosed for sale in one 
of the slave markets in Rome. They were so heau- 
tiful that he said, " They have the faces of angels.'' 
When he became the head of the church, he sent 
Aug'-us-tine with forty monks as missionaries to 
convert the Angles to Christianity. Augustine 
landed in Kent in 597. Eth'-el-bert was then king 
of Kent. Like Clovis, he had married a Chris- 
tian princess, Bertha, the daughter of a Frankish 
king. 

Augustine was welcomed, and in a short time 
King Ethelbert and a thousand of his men were 
baptized. 

During the next century missionaries visited 
the other kingdoms of Britain and they too ac- 
cepted the Christian faith. An old Roman church 
at Can'-ter-bur-y where Jupiter and Juno were 
once worshiped was made into a Christian church. 
It grew to be the Cathedral of Canterbury and 
Augustine became the first archbishop of Canter- 
bury. 



XV. MOHAMMED AND THE 
SARACENS 

The three religions which have taught the world 
that there is but one God are the Jewish, the Chris- 
tian, and the Mohammedan. These religions have 
all come from that branch of the Semitic race 
which is descended from Abraham. The wander- 
ing Arabs, the tribes of the Arabian desert, claim 
Ish'-ma-el, the son of Abraham, as their ancestor. 
Their holy city is Mecca. 

In Mecca is the Ca'-a-ba, or holy temple, where 
a black stone is kept that is believed to have been 
given to Abraham by the angel Gabriel. Pilgrims 
from all over Arabia came here to worship and to 
kiss the sacred stone. 

The Arabs were worshipers of the sun, moon, 
and stars. The level plain and clear sky made 
them familiar with the motions of these bodies. 
They found their way across the desert by the stars, 
and they thought that their own lives were guided 
by the position and motion of the heavenly bodies. 

Mohammed was the founder of Islam, as the 
Mohammedans call their religion. He was born 
in Mecca about 570 a.d. His family belonged to 
the tribe of the Ko'-reish-ites, who had charge of 
the temple of the Caaba. His parents died when 
he was a child and he grew up as a shepherd boy, 

170 










.liiiiliiiiiliillilliiiliiiiiilll 



172 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

tending the flocks and camels of his uncle, A'-bu 
Ta'-lib. 

Every owner of camels in the East frequently 
has occasion to join caravans carrying merchandise 
across the desert. He would receive pay for the 
use of his camels and for his own services. Mo- 
hammed traveled with his uncle to all parts of 
Arabia as a camel driver. Soon he became himself 
the leader of a caravan. He became known for his 
honesty, and merchants frequently intrusted to him 
valuable goods and large sums of money. 

When Mohammed was about twenty-five years 
old, he was engaged by a widow named Kha-di'- 
jah to take charge of her caravans. Her husband 
had been successful in this business, and Khadijah 
wished to carry it on. Khadijah was so pleased 
with his skillful management, and he became so 
fond of his mistress, that they decided to be mar- 
ried. As his wife was rich he did not need to make 
so many journej^s as before. 

For fifteen years they lived at JNIecca. At the 
end of this time Mohammed began to think much 
about religion. He knew about the religion of the 
Jews and that of the Christians, but he did not 
exactly like either of them. He liked still less the 
idol worship of Arabia. Mohammed had always 
been thoughtful about religion. Each year dur- 
ing the holy month of Ram-a-dan', he went away 
to a cave near Mecca and there he spent the 



174 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

time in fasting and prayer. It was in this cave 
that the angel Gabriel first appeared to him and 
taught him the religion that he afterwards taught 
to his followers. 

From time to time the angel came to him, tell- 
ing him more and more about the new religion. 
All of this JNIohammed remembered carefully and 
had it written in a book. This book is the Moham- 
medan Bible. They call it the Koran, a word 
which like our word Bible means book. The most 
important teaching of the Koran is this: " There is 
only one God and Mohammed is his prophet." 

He first taught his religion to his own family, 
and they became his first converts. But when he 
began to preach in the streets of Mecca, the crowd 
called him a fool and thought he was not right in 
his mind. 

At last the chiefs of the Koreishites threatened 
to kill him if he did not keep silent. They were the 
guardians of the Caaba; and Mohammed, by con- 
demning their worship of idols and men, of sun 
and stars, made the care of the temple less profit- 
ablco He was at last obliged to flee from Mecca 
at night, and he escaped death only by hiding in 
a cave while his nephew put on his clothes and lay 
down on the couch of the prophet. This made the 
pursuers think that Mohammed was still at his 
home. 

A story tells us that the spiders spun their webs 



MOHAMMED AND THE SARACENS 175 

across the entrance of the cave, and that the doves 
built nests in front of it to deceive the angry chiefs, 
who sought the prophet's life. 

The flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Me- 
dina took place in 622. This is the event from 
which all Mohammedans reckon time, just as we 
reckon the years from the birth of Christ. The 
Arabic word for this event is Heg'-i-ra, or flight. 
Since 622 was the first year of the flight, 1915 
would be 1293 in the Arabic reckoning. 

Mohammed had many followers in Medina, 
and a mosque, or place of prayer, was soon built 
and the prophet taught the people a form of wor- 
ship. One God only must be worshiped five times 
each day with the face turned toward JNIecca. A 
part of one's goods must be given each year to 
the poor, and the yearly fast in the month Rama- 
dan must be kept. Every good Mohammedan 
must also make once in his life a pilgrimage to 
Mecca. All this was not taught at once, however. 

Soon after coming to Medina the prophet said 
that the angel Gabriel had told him that Islam 
must be forced upon the whole world. All heathen 
nations must accept the new religion or be put to 
the sword. Jews and Christians must become Mo- 
hammedans or pay tribute to the prophet. 

Mohammed soon had an army at his command. 
He attacked and defeated a caravan of the Ko- 
reishites, and finally captured the city of Mecca 



176 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

itself. He broke all the idols of the Caaba, shout- 
ing* as each one fell, " Truth has come and false- 
hood gone forever! " 

He continued his conquests until all Arabia was 
converted. Hearing that the Greek emperor, 
Her-a'-cli-us, was preparing to attack him, he 
made ready an expedition against him. In the 
midst of this he died in the year 632. 

Mohammed's father-in-law, A'-bu Bek'-er, was 
chosen caliph, or successor, to the prophet. Under 
O'-mar, the next caliph, Persia, Palestine, and Sy- 
ria were conquered and made to accept the new re- 
ligion. Egypt was next added to the rapidly 
growing Mohammedan Empire. When Al-ex-an'- 
dri-a was taken, a Moslem leader inquired of Omar 
what should be done with the books in the famous 
library there. 

" If these books agree with the Koran, they are 
not needed; if they disagree with it they should 
be destroyed," said Omar. 

The seven hundred thousand rolls of parchment 
which the library was thought to contain were dis- 
tributed among the public baths of the city and 
used for fuel. 

In 710 the conquest of Africa was finished and 
the leader Ta'-rik crossed into Spain. In 711 in 
one great battle he destroyed the Visigothic king- 
dom there. When Spain was secured, a great 
army crossed the Pyrenees into Gaul. There the 



MOHAMMED AND THE SARACENS 177 

Mohammedans were met by Charles Martel with 
an army of Franks. At Tours in 732, a battle was 
fought that saved Christian Europe from de- 
struction. The Mohammedan cavalry rode again 
and again upon the Frankish infantry, but were 
beaten back as if from a wall of iron. All day the 
battle lasted. Toward evening a charge was made 
by the Franks and the Moslem leader, Abd-er- 
Rah'man was killed. During the night the enemy 
retreated, and they never appeared in France 
again. It was decided by the battle of Tours that 
Christians and not Moslems should rule Europe. 

Charles was the son of that Pipin who was the 
mayor of the palace in the time of the do-nothing 
Merovingian kings. From the stout blows which 
he dealt the Mohammedans with his battle ax, he 
got the surname Martel, or the Hammer. He be- 
came the hero of Europe, for he had saved it 
from becoming subject to a false religion. 

Some time before this the capital of the Mo- 
hammedan Empire had been fixed at Bag'-dad on 
the Tigris River. This city became the most beau- 
tiful in the world. Five bridges spanned the river, 
and six hundred canals ran through the city. 
There were a thousand mosques and as many tem- 
ples. All the wealth obtained by conquest was 
spent there. The palace of the caliph was equal 
to the golden house of Nero or the cedar house 
of SolomoUo 



178 



OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 



The empire became so large that a second cap- 
ital was set up at Cor-do'-va in Spain, where the 
cahph of the West ruled. 




Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours. 

From 768 to 809 there ruled at Bagdad the 
most noted of all the caliphs. This was Ha-roun'- 



MOHAMMED AND THE SARACENS 179 

al-Ra'-shid (Aaron the Just) . The wonderful tales 
of the Arabian Nights are stories of Bagdad in the 
good days of Haroun. 

When Haroun was a young man he became a 
general in the army. He defeated the army of the 
Empress Irene of Constantinople and compelled 
her to send to Bagdad every year seventy thousand 
pieces of gold. This money was paid regularly for 
many 3^ears; but when Ni-ceph'-o-rus came to the 
throne he sent this letter to Haroun : 

" The weak and faint-hearted Irene agreed to 
pay tribute to you when she should have made you 
pay tribute to her. Now, pay back to me all the 
gold she sent you or else we will settle with the 
sword." 

When Haroun had read the letter the messen- 
ger of Nicephorus threw down before him a bundle 
of swords. 

" Then," the story goes, " the caliph drew his 
keen scimiter and with a stroke cut in two the 
Roman swords without dulling the edge of the 
weapon." 

Then he wrote a letter to Nicephoiiis. This is 
what it said: 

" Haroun-al-Raschid, Commander of the Faith- 
ful, to Nicephorus the Roman dog : I have read thy 
letter. Thou shalt not hear, thou shalt see my 
reply." 

The army which he sent utterly routed the Ro- 



180 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

mans. The emperor promised to pay the tribute 
again. He did not keep his promise, and Haroun 
prepared again to punish him. But he died be- 
fore his army was ready to march. It was left for 
the Turks, a Tartar tribe which had been converted 
to Mohammedanism, to take the city of Constanti- 
nople. 



XVI. THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE 

PiPiN THE Short, who set aside the last Me- 
rovingian king and made himself king of Frank- 
land, had two sons, Charles and Carloman. As 
Carloman lived only a short time Charles became 
king. He ruled from 768 to 814. In after times 
he was called Charlemagne (Shar-le-mane'), the 
I*'rench form of Karl the Great. 

We must remember that in his time there was 
yet no France and no French people. Charle- 
magne was a German and spoke the German 
language. The Franks, too, were Germans, who 
had settled among the Gauls and Romans. The 
French people and language came from the mix- 
ing of these three races and languages. 

On the east of the Rhine, where there were no 
Gauls or Romans, a pure German race lived, and 
their country is now called Germany. 

Why was this king called the Great? Only a 
few kings have received this title, and there is al- 
ways some good reason for it. 

In the first place, Charlemagne was of great 
size and stature. He was seven feet high, broad in 
shoulders and chest, and of immense strength. He 
was fond of hunting, riding, and swimming. 

He shrank from no toil and feared no danger. 
He was a successful general; he fought fifty-two 

181 



182 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

military campaigns and never met defeat. He en- 
larged his empire so that it took in all of western 
Europe except Spain, and he was crowned by the 
Vo])e as Roman emperor. 

Besides knowing how to win battles, he knew 
how to govern his empire. He divided it into dis- 
tricts ; at the head of each district he placed a count, 
who could be removed if he did not manage well. 

Twice each year he called together all the chiefs 
and the people to take part in the making of laws. 
Every Frank felt that he was a part of the great 
empire, and that he was helping to govern it. 
After the laws were made, judges were chosen and 
sent to all parts of the kingdom to hold courts and 
enforce the laws. 

Charlemagne was the first barbarian king to 
establish schools. In his own palace at Aa'-chen 
(Aix) he had a school for his own children. He 
brought a learned Englishman named AF-cuin 
from the school of York in England to direct the 
teaching in his schools. 

He himself never learned to read and write 
until he became a king. But then he saw the need 
of it and studied so diligently that he learned to 
speak in Latin and to read Greek. 

These languages were the most important then 
because all the books were written in them. Char- 
lemagne cared little for eating and drinking, and 
usually read a book while he ate. He was prompt 




Charlemagne. 



184 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

in all his actions, never lost time, and in this way 
he had time enough left for recreation when his 
work was done. 

His first war was against the Lom'-bards in 
Italy. The Lombards were a German tribe who 
had been invited into Italy by N arses, the general 
of Justinian. 

After the Gothic kingdom of Theodoric was 
destroyed, the Lombard kingdom became the chief 
power in northern and central Italy. As the Lom- 
bards were Greek Christians they were not friendly 
to the Roman Pope and they soon began to 
threaten Rome. 

This was about the time that Pipin made himself 
king of the Franks. As L-^ wanted to be crowned 
by the Pope, he was invited to help Rome against 
the Lombards. Pipin marched his army into Italy, 
took from the Lombard king a large part of his 
territory, and gave it to Pope Stephen III. In 
return for this, the Pope solemnly crowned him 
king. 

In the time of Charlemagne another quarrel 
came up with the Lombards. He had married the 
daughter of Des-i-de'-ri-us, the Lombard king, and 
afterwards divorced her and sent her home to her 
father. Desiderius was so angry at this that he 
called upon Pope Ha'-dri-an to make the son of 
Carloman king instead of Charlemagne. 

The Frank king promptly led his army across 



THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE 185 

the Alps, took Desiderius prisoner and shut him 
up in a convent. He then put the iron crown of 
the Lombard upon his own head and declared hii^i- 
self lord of all Italy. 

On account of the crimes of the Empress Irene 
at Constantinople, who had blinded her own son 
that she might rule, the Italians declared them- 
selves independent of her. The Eastern emperors 
had gone on calling themselves Roman emperors 
ever since the time of Constantine, although they 
had no power at Rome. 

The Greek and Roman churches had come to 
think differently about religion. A great dispute 
about the use of images came up in the eighth cen- 
tury. In the East the mosaics and pictures were 
taken out of the churches and destroyed, the priests 
claiming that the people worshiped these things as 
idols. But the Roman Church held that it was 
right to adorn the house of worship with the statues 
and pictures of the Saviour, the Virgin, and the 
saints. 

The Pope thought that there should be an em- 
peror in the West who agreed with the Roman 
Church. Accordingly, on Christmas Day, 800, in 
the Church of St. Peter, Pope Leo III crowned 
Charlemagne Roman emperor. As the golden 
crown was placed upon his head, all the people 
shouted, " Long live Charles Augustus, Emperor 
of the Romans! " 




The Crowning of Charlemagne. 



THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE 187 

After this, the eastern half of the old Roman 
Empire came to be called the Greek Empire. The 
language spoken there was Greek, while in the west 
only Latin was spoken. 

The war against the Saxons was the most stub- 
born in which Charlemagne engaged. These fierce 
people lived on the eastern bank of the lower 
Rhine. They were still worshipers of Thor and 
Woden, and they hated the Franks because they 
had become Christians. 

It took eighteen campaigns and thirty years of 
warfare to conquer them. JVIany times they seemed 
to be subdued but then the war broke out afresh. 

Charlemagne insisted on making Christians of 
them, and baptized many at the point of the sword. 
Once he massacred forty-five hundred of them for 
breaking a treaty. At last he gave up trying to 
conquer them and offered to make peace, if their 
heroic leader, Wit'-te-kind, would consent to be 
baptized. 

After his baptism many of the Saxons became 
Christians. Their name still remains in the king- 
dom of Saxony, one of the German states. 

The emperor built a splendid cathedral at 
Aachen, his capital. There he was buried, under 
the floor and beneath the dome of the church. His 
body was placed sitting in a marble chair, dressed 
in his royal robes and crown. His horn, and a 
copy of the Gospels were upon his lap and his 



THE EMPIRE OP CHARLEMAGNE 189 

sword by his side. The marble chair may still be 
seen in the cathedral at Aix, but the other relics 
were taken to Vienna by later emperors. 

His son Louis was a weak ruler and had a 
troubled reign. He divided the kingdom among 
his three sons. Louis received the eastern, or Ger- 
man part, Charles the western part, and Lothair, 
Italy, with a long strip of land running north be- 
tween the other two. Such was the beginning of 
the modern countries, France, Germany, and Italy. 




Roland in the Pass of Roncesvalles. 

{Roland was one of Charlnnagne s bravest warriors.) 



XVII. THE NORTHMEN 

The Teutonic tribes living on the northern 
shores of Europe, in Denmark, and in Norway and 
Sweden are known in history as Northmen. 

Just as their brother tribes in Central Europe 
invaded and conquered the Roman Empire in the 
fifth century, so they invaded and conquered parts 
of the older Christian countries in the ninth and 
tenth centuries. 

But the Northmen, living along the bays and 
inlets of the coast, became expert sailors and ship- 
builders, and their raids and invasions were made 
by sea. Like the Franks and Goths they were 
strong and warlike, and despised getting anything 
by labor which they could get by plunder. 

Their ships were long and narrow. There was 
one mast in the center which carried a large square 
sail. Along the sides there were benches for 
twenty or more rowers. Their weapons and food 
were packed snugly away in the bottom of the 
boat — in the bow and stern and under the benches. 

In these boats they made long voyages. Set- 
ting out from Denmark or Norway, they would 
cross over to England and to the coast of France, 
and even to Iceland, Greenland, and America. 
They would frequently sail up a river until they 
came to a rich city or town. They would then land 

191 



192 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

their warriors and plunder the place, carrying off 
all the valuable things they could find. Then they 
would sail away before enough men could be got 
together to catch them. 

At first their raids were made in the summer. 
When winter came they would all go away to their 
homes along the fiords and harbol's of Norway. 
But toward the end of the ninth century they be- 
gan to make settlements along the coasts that they 
plundered. 

ALFRED THE GREAT 

Just 100 years after Charlemagne became king 
of France, Alfred, the greatest of English kings, 
came to the throne. Alfred and Charlemagne were 
much alike in some things. Both were great in 
war, both loved learning, and both were expert in 
the art of governing their countries. 

Alfred was the first English king who learned 
to read. A Welshman named Asser, who wrote the 
life of King Alfred, tells this story : 

One day Alfred's mother was showing her sons 
a poem written on parchment, and beautifully orna- 
mented with colors. She said — 

" Whichever of you will first learn to read this 
poem shall have it to keep for himself." 

Alfred at once sought out a teacher, and soon 
learned to read, but his brothers gave no further 
thought to the matter. From that time, he devoted 



THE NORTHMEN 193 

every spare moment to improving his mind, and 
became himself a writer of books. 

Alfred was twenty-two years old when he be- 
came king, and he at once entered into a terrible 
war against the Danes, who had invaded the coun- 
try. Three shiploads of these robbers had landed 
on the English coast in 787, and when the sheriff 
of the place went to inquire who they were, they 
slew him. That was the first appearance of the 
Northmen in England; but afterward, more and 
more of them came. As they were heathen and 
hated the Christians, they took delight in plunder- 
ing and burning the churches. In those days valu- 
able things were usually put in the churches for 
safe-keeping. The Danes soon found this out, and 
they killed the priests and carried away the treas- 
ures. 

The Danes proved to be more than a match for 
King Alfred and his soldiers; so he decided that 
he must build a navy and fight the enemy on the 
sea. The English quickly captured a Danish ves- 
sel, and they felt so encouraged that they soon had 
a good sized fleet of larger and stronger ships than 
even those of the Danes. Alfred thus became the 
founder of the English navy. 

In the sixth year of Alfred's reign, a large 
Danish army landed on the coast. They marched 
across the country, burning houses and villages, and 
robbing the people. King Alfred was driven from 



194 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

his capitol, and with a few of his followers, he hid 
in the swamps and woods. But he soon got to- 
gether another army and attacked the Danes at 
Eddington, where he defeated them in a hard 
fought battle. 

It was during these wars that Alfred disguised 
himself as a minstrel and went into the Danish 
camp, where he amused Guthrum, their king, by 
singing and playing on the harp. While so doing 
he found all about the situation of the Danish camp 
and the best way to attack it. After defeating the 
Danes, Alfred forced them to make peace and he 
baptised Guthrum and thirty of his men. He gave 
them the eastern half of England, north of the 
Thames River, for their home. 

As soon as the war was over, Alfred set to work 
to organize an army in case war should break out 
again. He stationed his ships along the coast and 
built strong forts for the defense of the country. 
After doing this, the king gave his attention to 
making good laws and in appointing judges who 
would study them and make just decisions. He 
rebuilt the chvu'ches and convents which had been 
destroyed by the Danes; and he had many manu- 
scripts copied for the use of the priests and other 
learned men, for there were yet no printed books. 
He kept a record of all the events of his reign, and 
this record is the chief means we have of finding 
out what happened in King Alfred's time. 



THE NORTHMEN 1IJ5 

Besides all these things, Alfred was interested 
in architecture, in art, in working metals, and in 
cutting gems. He measured his time by means of 
candles, which were made so that each one would 
burn out in four hours. He placed his candles in 
horn boxes so that they would not be blown out by 
the wind which came through the walls of ihis 
palace. These horn boxes were the first laiiterns 
used in England. 

It was Alfred's work as an author that distin- 
guished him from nearly all the kings of history 
from the time of David and Solomon. Other kings 
patronized literature, engaging men to write for 
them; but Alfred toiled over his own manuscripts 
amid all his other cares, and added greatly to the 
meaning of our language by fixing the use of words 
and supplying to the people good forms of speech, 
while at the same time cultivating their moral and 
religious characters and securing to them an endur- 
ing record of his reign. 

Alfred died in the year 901; and the lasting 
gratitude of his people was shown by the observ- 
ances in his honor after the lapse of a thousand 
years, in 1901. 

In the reign of Ethelred the Unready, the 
Danes began to come in greater numbers than ever. 
The king gave them great sums of money to go 
away. They took the money and were ever de- 
manding more and more. 




03 

o 



OS 
O 



> 



I 

O 



THE NORTHMEN 



197 



At last in 1002 Ethelred ordered a general mas- 
sacre of the Danes all over England. Thousands 




Alfred in the Camp of Guthrum. 



198 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

were killed and among them was Gunhilda, the sis- 
ter of King Sweyn of Denmark. Sweyn vowed 
vengeance on the English king. He came with a 
large army to England and drove Ethelred out 
and made himself king of England. In 1016 
Canute, his son, succeeded him. He was a good 
king and made excellent laws for England. He 
was a Christian and forbade the worship of the old 
gods. He forbade slavery also, and punished crim- 
inals, the strong as well as the weak. 

In 1042 the Danish line of kings died out and 
Edward the Confessor, the son of Ethelred, was 
restored to his throne. 

ROLF THE GANGER 

While these things were going on in England, 
the Northmen were making conquests in northern 
France. Once the}^ stabled their horses in the great 
church that Charlemagne built at Aachen. 

Rollo was a noted leader in the attacks on 
France. He was called Rolf the Ganger, or goer, 
on account of his long legs. In 885 Rolf came 
sailing up the Seine with thirty thousand men and 
seven hundred ships, and laid siege to the city of 
Paris. The city stood on an island, and was con- 
nected with the mainland by two bridges. These 
bridges were defended by two high and strong 
towers. The Northmen after staying for eighteen 
months gave up the task and retreated. 



THE NORTHMEN 199 

In 911 Kolf and his Noi*tlimen came again. 
They were routed in one battle, but King Charles 
saw that they were too strong to be driven out. He 
then did what Alfred had done in England. He 
gave them two provinces in the northern part of 
France. Rolf received a French princess for his 
wife and became the vassal of the French king. 

When Rolf was told that he must kiss the 
king's foot as a sign of faithfulness, he scornfully 
refused. When the French said that that part of 
the ceremony could not be left out, the chief told 
one of his men to kiss the king's foot for him. The 
soldier knelt before the king and lifted up his foot 
so high to kiss it that Charles rolled off his seat. 
The Northmen burst into laughter at his ridiculous 
appearance. 

The land given to Rolf became known as the 
duchy of Xormandy, and the Northmen were 
called Normans. Although Rolf had been a pirate 
and a plunderer himself, he would not allow any 
lawlessness in his new duchy. He made strict laws, 
and robliery was punished by hanging. Normandy 
became the best governed part of France. 

The new duke divided the land among his 
chiefs. They in turn gave part of their land to 
their vien, that is, the soldiers who fought with 
them, and kept the rest for themselves. Each man 
who thus received land of a chief had to give him 
part of the grain and fruit that he raised. He also 



200 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

had to do a certain number of days' work for his 
lord each year and fight for him in case of war. 
Any man who received lands from another became 
a vassal and he had to take the oath of fealty, or 
faithfulness, to his lord. 

The land thus received was called a fief or feud, 
and this system of landholding was called the 
feudal system. 

The vassal was a freeman. But the great mass 
of the people were serfs. Some were slaves that 
could be bought and sold. The serfs could not be 
sold but were obliged to live always upon the estate 
of their lord. They could not get any pay for their 
labor ajid when the land changed hands the serfs 
went with it. 

Wherever the Northmen went, they learned the 
language and accepted the religion of the land in 
which they lived. In France they became French- 
men, in England they became Englishmen. 

One of the descendants of Duke Rollo was 
William I, the conqueror and King of England. 

In Russia also a band of Northmen under a 
chief named Rurik set up a government with Nov'- 
go-rod as his capital. This was the beginning of 
the Russian Empire. Under King Vlad'-i-mir 
they were converted to Christianity and became 
Russians just as Rollo and his men became French. 

Wherever the Northmen were found, they were 
skillful in both war and government. 



XVIII. THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF 
ENGLAND 

When the Danes drove King Ethelred from 
his throne in England, he fled to Normandy. His 
wife was Emma, the great-granddaughter of the 
first duke, Rollo. His son Edward, called the Con- 
fessor, on account of his piety, grew up at the Nor- 
man court. 

When Edward wa^ restored to his father's 
kingdom he took along many Norman friends to 
whom he gave good places as officers in the English 
government. This was very displeasing to the 
English nobles, especially to the Earl Godwin, who 
was the most powerful among them. After a time 
Godwin drove the Norman families back to Nor- 
mandy. 

Edward married Edith, the daughter of God- 
win, but they had no children. After Edward's 
death, therefore, the English people chose Harold, 
the son of Godwin, to rule over them. 

Duke William of Normandy now laid claim to 
the English throne. He said that Edward had 
agreed to leave it to him. 

Once Harold had been shipwrecked on the Nor- 
man coast and found his way to the court of Wil- 
liam. Before William would allow him to return 
to England, he made him lay his hand upon an 

201 



202 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

altar and swear that when Hdw^ard died, he would 
support William's claim to the throne. 

The top of the altar was then removed and 
Harold was shown that his hand had rested just 
above the bones of certain holy men, or saints. To 
swear upon the bones of the saints was considered 
the most solemn kind of oath, and anyone who 
broke it would be treated as an outlaw. 

William sent a message to Harold reminding 
him of his oath. 

But Harold replied that he had been chosen 
king by the people of England and that he w^ould 
stand vip for his rights. 

William then made preparation to invade Eng- 
land. For eight months Normandy was a busy 
workshop. Bows and arrows, swords and spears, 
helmets and armor, were made ready. Along the 
coast hundreds of ships were fitted out and stored 
with provisions. 

William had asked the Pope for consent to con- 
quer England. It was given and the Pope sent 
also a beautiful flag, that he had blessed, to be car- 
ried at the head of the Norman Army. 

At last everything was ready and the Normans 
crossed the English Channel and landed on the 
English coast near Hastings. As William went 
ashore he stumbled and nearly fell. Some men 
near him exclaimed that it was a bad sign. But the 
duke showed them the earth which he had in his 



THE NORMAN CONQUEST OP ENGLAND 203 

hand saying, "It is a sign that I am taking pos- 
session of England." 

The Normans found no one to oppose them, 
for King Harold was away in the North fighting 
an army led by the King of Norway, who had in- 
vaded England. At Stamford Bridge Harold's 
army nearly destroyed the Norwegians and the 
English rebels who were with them. The English 
were celebrating the victory at a banquet, when 
news came from the South that Duke William had 
landed in England. 

Harold hastened to meet him, gathering men 
as he advanced. He placed his army on a hill near 
William's camp, and fortified it by driving stakes 
into the ground around it. 

Here the Normans made several attacks, but 
were driven back. At last the English soldiers 
came out of their defenses to attack the retreating 
Normans and were slain. Then William made a 
fierce attack on the king's standard, around which 
the best of the English soldiers were gathered. 
The king was wounded, the standard taken, and 
the battle of Hastings was won. This battle made 
Duke William of Normandy King William of 
England. 

The new king soon had orderly government es- 
tablished. Those English who refused to accept 
his rule were harshly treated and lost all their es- 
tates ; but those who submitted were kindly treated. 



204 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

The feudal system was set up in England. All 
land belonged to the king. It was divided among 
the barons who came with him, and they in turn 
divided their shares among their men. The small- 
est division of land was called a knight's fee, be- 
cause anyone holding this amount of land must 
furnish one knight to fight for the king. There 
were sixty thousand knights' fees in England. 
When the king needed an army, he called upon his 
barons to come with a number of soldiers accord- 
ing to the land they held. The barons called upon 
their men and an army was soon assembled. 

Three times each year William called together 
all the men in England that held land of him, to 
make laws and advise him about the state of the 
kingdom. It is said: " He made such good peace 
in the land that a man might travel all over Eng- 
land with his bosom full of gold without molesta- 
tion." 

For a long time there were two nations, two 
languages, and two kinds of law in England. But 
just as the Northmen became Frenchmen in 
France, the Norman-French became Englishmen 
in England. It required nearly two hundred years 
to blend the two nations into one. But King John 
lost the province of Normandy, and from that time 
the Norman conquerors became more and more 
English. 

The feudal system continued a long time iii 




Harold lieceiviiig tlie News of the Norman Invasion of 

England. 



206 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

England, but it was finally abolished, and every 
man became the owner of the land that he had once 
held of the king. 

There were two bad things about this system 
that caused it to be set aside. One was that it made 
the barons too strong. Sometimes one baron would 
have at his command several hundred knights. 
With such a force he could defy the king. Many 
barons set up an independent rule of their own. 
Some became highwaymen and robbed merchants 
and plundered the people. Often a quarrel would 
arise between two barons and then they would carry 
on war until one was conquered. 

All of this made the country unsafe to travel in 
or even to live in. The only way to be safe w^as 
to become the vassal of some powerful noble who 
made it a point of honor to stand by his men. 

Every baron lived in a strong house built of 
stone which we call a feudal castle. This castle 
was a huge structure. It contained great courts 
and dining halls large enough to accommodate 
hundreds of men. There were stables for horses 
and storehouses for food and supplies of war. 
Outside was a deep moat, or ditch, filled with wa- 
ter. This made it possible for a baron to gather 
all his men within the castle and to remain there 
for a long time if he was besieged. 

His men could gather on the high walls and 
towers and throw down stones and weapons upon 



THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND 207 

the besiegers. The only way to take a castle was 
to batter a hole through the walls, or to build up 
high towers alongside of them. Then a bridge 
could be made from the tower to the wall of the 
castle. But with brave defenders inside, the baron 
could usually bid defiance to any foe. 

The feudal system was a bad thing for the king, 
the people, the merchants, and for all the weak and 
unprotected. It made the king too weak to pro- 
tect his people. It made the people the slaves of 
the nobles. The man who was not protected by 
some lord might be killed as an outlaw. The mer- 
chants had to travel in large companies with armed 
men to protect them. 

After the death of Charlemagne and the divi- 
sion of his empire, there were no more strong and 
able kings to keep the nobles in order. The result 
was that each noble built a strong castle and be- 
came partly independent. In this way the feudal 
system spread over Europe. After a time it came 
about that the people joined with the kings to put 
down the nobles. 

A witty writer said that the king was the cat, 
tlie nobles were the rats, and the people were the 
mice. Both cats and rats eat mice, but there was 
only one cat while there were many rats. So it 
was prudent for the mice to help the cat to kill off 
the rats, even if the cat ate a few of them. 

The merchants and mechanics lived mainly in 



208 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

cities. Soon the cities grew strong and rich enough 
to purchase their independence of the noble in 
whose province they stood. The noble was always 
in need of money for his wars, and the city would 
furnish the money in return for the privilege of 
governing itself. 

When gunpowder came into use the power of 
the nobles was soon broken down. A musket ball 
could pierce their armor and a cannon could batter 
down their castles. A few pieces of cannon, with 
the help of the people and the free cities, made the 
kings strong again; and in place of the feudal 
system, Europe became divided into monarchies 
ruled by powerful kings. 



XIX. THE CRUSADES 

We have read how the followers of Mohammed 
overran all Western Asia and compelled the inhabi- 
tants to accept their religion. Jerusalem, Naza- 
reth, Bethlehem, and all the places associated with 
the life of Christ fell into their hands. 

Among the early Christians it was thought to 
be a very pious act to make a ]3ilgrimage, or jour- 
ney, to some»sacred place. The tomb of some saint, 
like that of St. Thomas at Canterbury in England, 
might be the place. But a visit to the birthplace 
of the Saviour at Bethlehem or to His tomb at 
Jerusalem, was thought to bring upon the pilgrims 
the choicest blessing of heaven. 

The Saracen caliphs at Bagdad ruled over 
Palestine and the holy places. Haroun-al-Raschid 
was one of these caliphs. They were usually intel- 
ligent and liberal men, and were willing that the 
Christian pilgrims from Europe should be allowed 
to visit Palestine. They even encouraged such pil- 
grims and treated them courteously for the pil- 
grims brought considerable money into the country. 

But in the wars of the caliphs, a Tartar tribe 
living near the Caspian Sea was converted to the 
faith. These were the Turks. They soon became 
stronger than the caliphs, and took away almost 
all their possessions. The Turks were ignorant 

209 



210 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

and barbarous. They called the Christian pilgrims 
dogs and unbelievers, and seized and plundered 
them. They even tortured, insulted, and killed 
many. The holy church at Jerusalem was made 
into a stable and the other holy places were treated 
with like contempt. 

When stories of these insults were brought 
back to Europe, it made the Christians very angry. 
The Pope and the priests began to urge the 
kings and nobles to take revenge upon the infidel 
Turks. 

You may imagine how the Christian knight 
was affected by this oppression. He had taken a 
vow to aid the persecuted and the helpless, and to 
be a champion in the cause of religion. What 
could please his chivalrous nature more than to 
go to the Holy Land to fight the heathen and pro- 
tect the pilgrims? 

The father of the first Crusade, or War of the 
Cross, was Peter the Hermit, a monk of Am'-i-ens, 
France. A council of the church was held at Cler- 
mont in France to consider what should be done. 
Pope Urban made a speech to a great throng of 
people telling them of the wrongs suffered at the 
hands of the Turks. 

" When Christ calls you to defend Him," cried 
the Pope, " let nothing keep you at home. Who- 
ever shall leave his house, his father, or his mother, 
his wife, or his children in the name of Christ, shall 



THE CRUSADES 211 

be rewarded a hundredfold, and shall have eternal 
hfe." 

The vast assembly rose up in their enthusiasm 
and shouted: " It is the will of God! It is the will 
of God!" Those who were wilhng to join in a 
war against the Turks placed crosses upon the 
breast or shoulder. 

Peter was at the council and immediately after- 
wards he set out on a journey through Europe 
preaching with great earnestness to enormous 
crowds of people. Everywhere he was welcomed, 
and thousands of men in every land took the cross. 
Finally a day was set when the expedition should 
start for Constantinople. From that place they 
were to cross into Asia Minor, and march through 
^yria to Jerusalem. 

Peter himself led an advanced guard of eighty 
thousand men, women, and children through Eu- 
rope. But they had made no arrangement for food 
or shelter. On the way through Hungary they 
compelled the people to feed them. The Hun- 
garians attacked and killed many of them. Hun- 
ger and cold killed more. Not more than seven 
thousand crossed the Bosporus into Asia, and these 
were cut to pieces by a Turkish army. 

In the meantime the main army of the cru- 
saders gathered. It was a splendid body of v/ell- 
disciplined soldiers. There were a hundred thou- 
sand mail-clad knights and six hundred thousand 







cu 

K 

-M 



THE CRUSADES 213 

footmen, commanded by Godfrey, the Duke of 
Lor-raine', and Tan'-cred of Sicily, two of the 
noblest knights in Europe. 

The different bodies of troops met at the Bos- 
porus. The capital city of the Turks, Ni-C£e'-a, 
was taken. The crusaders then took up the march 
to An'-ti-och, a distance of two hundred miles. 
Disease, starvation, and the enemy killed nearly 
half of them before they reached that city. It was 
seven months before the stronghold fell into their 
hands. Then they pushed on to Jerusalem. 

At last they came in sight of the Holy City. 
All their strife and toils were forgotten in their 
enthusiasm. They kissed the ground and marched 
bareheaded and barefooted, in the manner of pious 
pilgrims. 

A month was spent in building machines to 
scale the walls. A first assault was unsuccessful. 
But at the second the crusaders burst in the city. 
For seven days there was a fearful slaughter of 
Moslems and Jews, and it only ceased when there 
was no one left to kill. 

Jerusalem was then made into a Christian king- 
dom with Godfrey at the head of it. He would 
not be called king but took the title. Defender of 
the Holy Sepulcher. This was the end of the first 
Crusade. It had lasted three years (1096-99). 
The crusaders then returned to Europe leaving a 
few hundred knights to guard the holy places. 



THE CRUSADES 215 

About a hundred years after the first Crusade, 
the city of Jerusalem was taken by Sal'-a-din, the 
JNlohammedan ruler of Egypt. But Saladin showed 
a nobler nature than the Christians or Turks. 
There was no slaughter of prisoners or of defense- 
less women and children. 

Three great sovereigns then set out, each with 
an army, to recover the Holy City; Richard, King 
of England, Philip Augustus of France, and the 
distinguished German emperor, Frederick Bar- 
ba-ros'-sa. The emperor was drowned while cross- 
ing a swollen stream in Asia Minor and his son, 
Frederick II, also lost his life in this, the third 
Crusade. The chief event was the siege of A'-cre, 
a city on the coast which blocked the way to Jeru- 
salem. 

It took a long time to capture the place. It 
is said that six hundred thousand men were gath- 
ered about its walls. Saladin made strong efforts 
to drive the besiegers off, but he failed, and the 
city surrendered in 1191. 

Philip and Richard could not agree, and the 
French king led his army home. Richard re- 
mained two years after the fall of Acre trying 
in vain to take Jerusalem. But his troops were 
so thinned by disease and battle that they were 
scarcely equal in number to the Moslem garrison 
in the Holy City, and Saladin with an enormous 
army was hovering near. So he made a truce with 




1 






THE CRUSADES 217 

Saladin. It was agreed that the Christians should 
go untroubled to the holy places, and that a strip 
of coast from Tyre to Joppa should be held by 
Richard. 

There were in all eight crusades, but the re- 
maining five are of little importance. They closed 
in 1291, having lasted almost two hundred years. 
In that year the last Christian was driven out of 
Palestine and the Mohammedans have held the 
land to this day. 

Though the Crusades did not keep Jerusalem 
out of the hands of the Moslems, they had some 
good results. They helped to take away power 
from the feudal nobles who had oppressed the peo- 
ple. Thousands of the nobles died in war. Many 
more got so far into debt that they could not afford 
to keep knights about them. When a noble died 
and had no heirs, his estates went to the king. In 
that way the kings became strong enough to control 
the rest of the nobles. 

The Crusades also led to commerce between 
Europe and the East. The Italian cities, Venice 
and Genoa, became rich in supplying the needs of 
the crusading armies, and they kept up the trade 
that they had begun. Soon the products of India, 
China, Persia, and Arabia, were brought to Venice 
and Genoa. From these cities merchants sold them 
all over Europe. 



XX. BEGINNING OF NEW NATIONS 

ENGLAND 

The nobles were much less in number after the 
Crusades. But those that were left became more 
powerful and the fights between them and the 
kings in the different countries of Europe still 
went on. 

When Richard the Lion-hearted died, his 
brother John, a very wicked man, became king. 
It would take a long time to tell all the bad things 
he did, but here is one of them. 

The rightful heir to the throne was Arthur, 
the son of John's older brother, Geoffrey. John 
took Arthur prisoner and shut him up in a castle 
in Rouen. He ordered the jailer to put out the 
boy's eyes, but Arthur begged so pitifully that 
the jailer did not have the heart to do it. 

Then John came one night accompanied by his 
squire, and the two men took Arthur out on the 
Seine in a boat where they killed him and sunk his 
body in the river. Whether this is true or not, it 
is certain that Arthur was never seen again after 
he left the castle with his uncle. 

The French king fought against John and took 
Normandy away from him. When John sum- 
moned his barons to go with him to France to win 

218 



BEGINNING OF THE NATIONS 219 

the lost province back, they refused to go. Then 
he began to take away their property and to abuse 
their famiUes. Some of them were secretly mur- 
dered as Arthur had been. No man's life was safe 
in England while John was king. 

At last the barons made war on the king and 
compelled him to sign a paper called the Great 
Charter. By doing this he agreed not to take any 
more money from the people without the consent 
of the great council composed of the nobles and 
the bishops of England. He also promised that 
no man should be unlawfully imprisoned or put to 
death. 

The Great Charter contained many other 
things that took away the power of the king, and 
made the life and property of the people safer. 

In the reign of John's son, Henry III, Simon 
de Montfort, the leader of the barons, called to- 
gether the representatives of the people. These 
with the nobles and bishops made up the English 
Parliament, the body which still governs England. 

Thus in England the barons and the people 
joined together to take away power from a wicked 
king and give it to the people. 

For the next two hundred and fifty years the 
nobles remained very powerful in England; but 
they did not try to rule independently of the king 
as in France and Germany. In the middle of the 
fifteenth century a civil war, called the " Wars of 




King John Signing the Great Charter. 



BEGINNING OF THE NATIONS 221 

the Roses," broke out in England between the rival 
houses of York and Lancaster. Both these fami- 
lies claimed the throne. So many of the nobles 
were killed in this war that they never became 
powerful again. 

King Henry VII would not allow them to 
keep any armed men in their castles. The kings 
of England then became so strong that they ruled 
the country without consulting the people very 
mucli about it. 

After a time one of the kings, Charles I, be- 
came so tyrannical that the people rebelled against 
him and put him to death. England then became 
a republic for a time. Charles II, the son of 
Charles I, was restored to the throne, but from 
that time the people gained more and more power. 

FRANCE 

When the empire of Charlemagne was divided 
in 841, his grandson, Charles, became king of the 
western Franks. He gave the county of Paris to 
a brave soldier, Robert the Strong. Just as the 
descendants of Clovis became worthless and were 
set aside by Pepin, so Pepin's descendants became 
weak, and at last died out altogether. 

Then the counts of Frankland chose Hugh 
Capet, the great-grandson of Robert the Strong, to 
be king. Hugh's domain had become known as 



222 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

the Duchy of France. He was therefore the first 
King of France. 

The French counts and dukes were just as 
strong as the king, and considered themselves his 
equal. A large part of the history of France for 
four centuries is taken up with wars between the 
kings and their vassals. Louis XI at last subdued 
the last of them and made himself supreme. 
France became a strong monarchy. The common 
people in France had little power. They were 
mostly serfs or slaves, and they did not gain en- 
tire freedom from their lords until the outbreak of 
the French Revolution. 

GERMANY AND ITALY 

The story of the feudal lords and the kings in 
Germany is quite different from that of France or 
England. The countrj^ became divided into five 
duchies, Sax'-o-ny, Fran-co'-ni-a, Swa'-bi-a, Ba- 
va'-ri-a, and Lor-raine'. These great dukes with 
the bishops elected the German emperor. 

In 1356 four princes and three archbishops ob- 
tained the right to choose the emperor of Germany. 
These were called the seven electors, and Germany 
and Italy together were known as the Holy Roman 
Empire. 

In 911 the family of Charlemagne had died 
out. The last king of his house was known as 



BEGINNING OP THE NATIONS 223 

Louis the Child. At his death the nobles met and 
chose Conrad, of Franconia, king. At this time a 
tribe of fierce Tartar warriors called Magyars 
(Ma-jarz') invaded Germany, and a strong king 
was needed to defend the country. Conrad lived 
only a few years. On his deathbed he called his 
brother to him and gave him the crown and 
jewels. 

" Take these to Henry of Saxony," he said. 
" He is the only one strong enough to defend the 
country." 

The princes met at Aachen and elected Henry. 
The messengers sent to inform him of his election 
found him hunting birds. On this account he be- 
came known as Henry the Fowler. 

Henry proved to be a vigorous ruler. First he 
compelled the Duke of Lorraine, who had set up 
an independent kingdom, to obey his authority. 
Soon the Magyars began to pour into the country. 
Henry beat them in one battle, but seeing that his 
soldiers were not fit for war, he made a truce with 
the barbarians for nine years agreeing to pay them 
every year a large sum of gold. 

Then Henry set to work to train his army. He 
built forts along the border and stocked them with 
food and supplies. Before the truce was up he was 
ready to meet the enemy again. 

In the tenth year the JNIagyar king sent to de- 
mand the tribute again. 



224 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

" Xo," said Henry, " not a piece of gold will 
I give you.'' 

There was a hard struggle, but at ]Mer'-se- 
burg, in 933, Henry took the camp of the ^lagyars 
and got back a large amount of money that they 
had taken from him. The ]Magyars then settled 
along the lower Danube and called their kingdom 
Hungary, and there they are to-day. They are the 
only people in Eiu'ope except the Turks who do 
not belong to the white race. 

The greatest of all the old German emperors 
was Frederick I of the house of Ho'-hen-stau-fen. 
He is known as Frederick Barbarossa, or Red- 
beard. One of the best of his acts was to stop the 
wars and plundering^ of the barons. He com- 
pelled all the princes to obey him, and made the 
kings of Poland and Bohemia his vassals. 

But Frederick with all his power could not con- 
quer the Italian cities. These cities were founded 
by the Lombard nation whom X arses had brought 
into Italy. JNIilan w^as the leading one. They had 
grown rich by trade, and wxre determined to gov- 
ern themselves. They drove out the counts and 
bishops w^ho had ruled them. When Frederick 
came into Italy with his army, they joined in a 
leagaie against him. 

The king captured and burned ]Milan, but in 
the end he was defeated and the cities became free 
and independent. 




Henry the Fowler Chosen Emperor of Germany. 



226 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Frederick's death during the third Crusade has 
been mentioned. He was the best loved of all the 
emperors, and the people mourned for him many 
years. A legend grew up among the peasants 
that the hero was not dead, but asleep in a cav- 
ern among the mountains. In after years, when 
the empire fell into disorder and weakness, the 
people sighed for the return of the times of 
Barbarossa. 



XXI. THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING 

Revival means a bringing to life again. 
When a country has schools and colleges, books, 
and works of art, and when the people are edu- 
cated, we may say learning is found there. 

The barbarian tribes that swarmed into Europe 
cared nothing for learning. The books of the 
Greeks and Romans were destroyed. There were 
no schools worthy the name. Here and there a wise 
king like Alfred the Great or Charlemagne, had 
established schools, but most kings cared only for 
war. 

The knights and nobles despised learning. 
Study was for priests and not a fit occupation for 
a soldier. A few schools were kept up in the 
churches or in the convents where the monks lived; 
but these were only for the education of the priests. 

We may say truly that learning had died out 
in Europe. 

During the fifteenth century it was revived, or 
brought to life again in Italy. 

Italy was less exposed to the attacks of the bar- 
barians than the other European countries. The 
Lombard cities were the first to grow rich. Flor- 
ence, Venice, Genoa, and Pavia, had many citizens 
who had grown wealthy by trade. When people 

227 



228 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

have mone}^ they can devote their time to writing 
hooks or to painting and sculpture. 

The jDeople of these rich Itahan cities were the 
first people in Europe to give some attention to 
books. 

The poet Petrarch was the first to begin to study 
the old Greek and Latin books. He loved to 
read the poems of Homer. He said that there were 
not more than ten men in Ital}^ who could under- 
stand them. 

Petrarch and other Italian scholars began to 
search through the old libraries of the churches and 
monasteries for rolls of parchment containing old 
writings. In neglected cellars among heaps of 
rubbish, and in strange nooks and out-of-the-way 
corners they found here and there a manuscript 
which was priceless. 

These precious old rolls were unrolled and 
copies were made and placed in libraries. It was 
in the fifteenth century that Pope Nicholas V 
founded the great Vatican library at Rome. He 
collected five thousand volumes at a cost of $250,- 
000. This Pope kept several hundred clerks at 
work copying books, for you must remember that 
there were no printing presses at that time. 

Constantinople was the only city that had not 
been taken by the invading tribes. Many valuable 
collections of books were kept there. Schools were 
kept up and many learned Greeks taught in them. 



THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING 229 

In the thirteenth century the Turks began to attack 
this city. They crossed the Bosporus and cap- 
tured all the land about the city. The Turkish Sul- 
tan, Baj-a-zet', defeated an army of one hundred 
thousand French and German knights and swore 
that in a short time " he would stable his horse in 
St. Peter's Church at Rome." 

But before Bajazet could carry out his plans, 
his own kingdom in Asia was invaded by Tam-er- 
lane', a descendant of the great Genghis Khan of 
whom we read in the story of China. His name 
was really Timour the Lame. He was so called 
because he was lame in one of his legs. But this 
name was changed into Tamerlane. 

Tamerlane ruled in Turkestan. His capital 
was at Sam-ar-cand', where he lived in a fine palace 
of marble. He was chief of the Mongols, a tribe 
of Tartars. He had conquered all of Asia except 
India and Turkey, both of which he afterwards did 
conquer. He was more cruel than Attila, the 
" scourge of God." It is estimated that he burned 
and plundered fifty thousand towns and killed five 
millions of people. When he took Ispahan in Per- 
sia he slew seventy thousand. At Delhi in India, 
one hundred thousand prisoners were massacred. 
He took Bagdad, the old capital of Haroun-al- 
Raschid, and made a pyramid of ninety thousand 
heads at the gates of the city. 

He now decided to subdue the whole world. 




statue of Gutenburg, the Inventor of the Printing Pres* 



THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING 281 

" There is only one God in heaven," said he, 
" and there should be only one king on earth." 
From Bagdad he marched west. Bajazet hurried 
away from Constantinople to meet him. They met 
at Angora in Asia Minor. The Turkish army was 
destroyed. Bajazet was made a prisoner. Tim- 
our put him in an iron cage and chained him to 
one of the bars. In this way he was carried from 
place to place for the amusement of the Mongol 
soldiers. 

Tamerlane returned to his capital and gave sev- 
eral weeks to feasting. Then he called his armies 
together and set out to reconquer China which had 
just rebelled and had driven out her Mongol em- 
perors. On the march he died. His empire fell to 
pieces at once, and the world breathed a little more 
freely when it heard that he was dead. 

The people of Constantinople knew that sooner 
or later their city would be taken. They could 
hardly muster ten thousand soldiers while their ene- 
my had several hundred thousand. Many Greeks 
began to leave the city for Italy. Teachers and 
scholars, who owned precious parchment rolls, took 
their treasures to Italy. They set up schools in the 
Italian cities, where they taught Greek and Latin. 

They were made welcome. The Italians had 
become earnest students of these languages and 
they gave their wealth to these Greek teachers. 
Many hundreds and even thousands of these pre- 



232 



OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 



cious old books of Greece and Rome were thus 
saved. For in 1453 Mohammed II besieged Con- 
stantinople with two hundred thousand men and 
took it by storm. He took down the cross from 




Mohammed II. Entering Constantinople. 



THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING 288 

the steeple of the cathedral of St. Sophia, and put 
up the crescent, the sign of the Mohammedan re- 
ligion. 

Since 1453 the Turks have continued to hold 
the city on the Bosporus, that Constant ine had 
thought the finest place in the whole world for a 
capital. 

While the Italian clerks were slowly copying 
old manuscripts with pen and ink, a German, John 
Gutenhurg, of Mainz, was inventing a quicker 
method of book-making. Long ages ago the Chi- 
nese had discovered a way of printing. Before 
Gutenburg's time this Chinese method was in use 
in Europe also. 

A block of hard wood was made of the size of 
the page to be printed. On this block was care- 
fully carved the words and sentences of that page. 
When this was done, the wood around the letters 
was cut away leaving the letters standing out in 
relief. 

Ink was put on the block. It was then care- 
fully pressed down on a sheet of paper, just as we 
use a rubber stamp to-day. 

Gutenhurg improved this method by cutting 
out each letter separately on a piece of wood or 
metal. When this movable type had been used to 
print one page, it could be taken out to set up 
another page. Thus the printing press was in- 
vented in 1438. About the same time also the art 



234 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

of making paper from linen rags was discovered. 
These were two of the greatest inventions ever 
made by man. 

A few years after this invention, printing 
presses were set up in Italy. The greatest printer 
of the age was Al'-dus Ma-nu'-ti-us of Venice. 




John Gutenburg and the First Printing Press. 

Gutenbm-g's first printed book was a Latin Bible 
made about 1450. 

Aldus printed hundreds of books in Greek and 
Latin. His books were famous for their beauty 
and freedom from mistakes. 

Scholars from England, France, and Germapy 



THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING 235 

flocked to Italy to learn of the great teachers there. 
When they returned to their homes they carried 
with them copies of the books they had studied. 
Teaching in the Italian schools consisted in read- 
ing and copying the old Greek and Latin manu- 
scripts. First the teacher would read a passage. 
This was written down by the class. Then the 
teacher would explain the meaning of the passage 
copied ; this was also written. When the course was 
finished, each pupil would have a complete copy of 
the book along with the explanations given by the 
teacher. 

In a few years schools were established all over 
Europe for the study of Greek and Latin, or the 
New Learning, as it was called. Books on geog- 
raphy and travel were eagerly read, for men had 
begun to make voyages along the coasts of Africa 
and northern Europe. 



MODERN HISTORY 



WII 


" -^ — .. H Yx^V. 1 H K IXBLES 




IVmizs 


Aiesuder tke Gjot kd 1b 


araBi- into 


- _ : 


■- - "- _ — 


-77 ^- - ;^^ iL. ^- - _. -- -_ 


^ prosper- 


- 












^^pi: up for Bmziy 
s time ft is 7 


C^HtllDBL 


X^^ 


T -: 


'7 -':^\ 


"^(r— 




" ri^-^fd on t 


— ' ' - — — 


fir 


-- ^BzV-: 








- 7 2. 


\I 


' r 


- -_ _ - - - - - 


- - . : 






" - " ' - - 


_ 










. _ '_;' 




- 




"^ --_- - - - ^ ' ^ 




fffi 


3i0-|iH 


It 7 




-- - 


T -.,"-'*- 


- 




- ' ' ' 


- - - - _ _ 


--'-- 




~ 


' - ' - T " - " T 


. - - . . _ , 


b- 




-_ ' 


•^- 




- _ , , ^ - 


;- 


- 




_ - _ ::_ ^- 






Zi:~ TiMJirs- 7 - ted rf tibcic tia^iEfes- 

>l2rco P<^ faftf ZBsdiianed as a Tis- 



oCbistixidk. Tk tales 
fid cdia and liA pabes erf 
. i. woe HOI bder^d hr Ms 

'C^'*^- Heandea 

. -Ifecoaslof 

t Tidf. and 



wtwd of it is tme- 






the deck on 
allowed to Sir 
totiadewitL 
Ubs place tr 
and Ihoo^t 



v»llli £gypl 
cararans win 




238 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Euphrates rivers and the Persian Gulf. There 
these caravans bought goods of other caravans that 
came from countries still farther east. 

When the Turks took possession of Western 
Asia they would no longer allow the Christian mer- 
chants to trade in those parts, and after they took 
Constantinople they shut the vessels of Genoa out 
of the Black Sea. Their pirate ships swarmed in 
the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, and it 
was unsafe for a merchant vessel to venture into 
those parts, unless well armed. 

The Turks sailed even out into the Atlantic and 
along the coasts of Europe and Africa, and many 
a battle was fought with them by sailors of Italy 
and Portugal. 

Columbus tells of a sea fight which a vessel of 
Genoa had with a Turk off the Portuguese coast. 
The Genoese ship was sunk and the crew swam 
ashore, Columbus among them. 

When the Eastern trade routes were thus cut 
oiF by the Turks, the Italian cities began to search 
for a new route to India by sea. In this work the 
Portuguese took the lead. Marco Polo had told of 
a great ocean on the east coast of India and China. 
If they could only find this ocean! But Africa was 
in the way. They must sail around it. It was not 
thought to be very far. But there were strange 
ideas about the ocean in those times. People 
thought that if one sailed out to the edge of the 



240 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

ocean, the ship would fall off the earth, or else be 
destroyed by the terrible monsters that were 
thought to live there. They thought the earth to be 
flat, like a round pie dish, and that the ocean was a 
great stream flowing around the outer edge. 

Then it was believed that as one approached the 
equator, the water became boiling hot, and of 
course no one could sail a ship on boiling water. 

But Prince Henry of Portugal was not dis- 
turbed by these tales. He sent out ship after ship 
along the coast of Africa to look for a strait 
through it or a way around it. He also told his 
sailors to go ashore and look for gold. The sailors 
were easily frightened and soon turned back. 
When they reached Cape Non, they were met with 
such terrible storms that they did not think it pos- 
sible to go farther. 

When Prince Henry died in 1463, his sailors 
had gone as far as the gold coast. In 1471 they 
crossed the equator and were astonished not to find 
boiling water. At last in 1486, Batholomew Diaz 
reached the most southern point of Africa, which 
was named the Cape of Good Hope. For now 
they had " good hope " of reaching Polo's won- 
derful ocean and the Indies. 

In 1498 four ships sailed under the command 
of Vasco da Gama, a young man, but one who was 
never frightened by anything. When he reached 
the Cape, the storms so alarmed his men that they 



THE SEARCH FOR THE INDIES 241 

resolved to turn back. But Vasco locked them up 
and sailed on. 

He passed the Natal coast on Christmas Day, 
which he named in honor of the birth of Christ. 
On he sailed vip the eastern coast. At Mozambique 
he found a pilot who knew the way to India. Then 
they struck eastward across the Indian Ocean and 
arrived at last in the harbor of Calicut on the west- 
tern coast of India. The road to the Indies was 
found at last. 

Everywhere da Gama found the Moors in pos- 
session of the trade. A battle was fought with them 
at Calicut before they would allow the Portuguese 
to go ashore. In 1500 da Gama returned to Lis- 
bon with his ships laden with the treasures of the 
East. The Portuguese then sailed frequently over 
da Gama's route to India. Their great generals, 
Al-me'-i-da and Al-bu-quer'-que, drove out the 
JVIohammedans, and Portuguese settlements took 
their place along the African coast. 

While the Portuguese were sailing east around 
Africa in search of the Indies, Columbus was hop- 
ing to find them by sailing west. When he read 
Polo's tale of a great ocean east of Asia, he said 
that this ocean was only the western side of the 
Atlantic Ocean, and that the world was round like 
a globe and not flat like a plate as most people 
thought. Being round, India could be reached by 
sailing west, just as a fly can walk around an apple. 



THE SEARCH FOR THE INDIES 243 

When Columbus asked help of the King of 
Spain to fit out a fleet, that king was making a 
final effort to drive the INIohammedans out of 
Spain. After ten years of bloody war, the Moorish 
kingdom of Gra-na'-da was taken. Bo-ab-dil', the 
last king, fell in battle, and the people were given 
the choice of becoming Christians or leaving the 
country. For a hundred years longer the Moorish 
people remained in Spain. But on account of cruel 
persecution many left. In 1609 Philip III drove 
the last of them, about a million, out of the land. 

It was in 1492 that Queen Isabella at last gave 
Columbus three ships for his western voyage. His 
discovery of a new world in the West was the most 
important event in the history of the world. 

For many years America was thought to be a 
part of India. But in 1513 a Spaniard, Bal-bo'-a, 
crossed the Isthmus of Darien and saw the great 
Pacific Ocean. Six years later, Ferdinand Ma- 
gel'-lan, a Portuguese sailor, was trying to find a 
shorter voyage around the southern end of South 
America into the Pacific Ocean. He crossed this 
ocean to the islands south of Asia and came back to 
Portugal by way of the Cape of Good Hope. He 
had sailed around the world. 

Magellan had proved that America was a new 
continent separate from India. But he had also 
found the voyage to be far longer than the route 
around Africa. Magellan did not live to reach 



THE SEARCH FOR THE INDIES 245 

home, and only one of his five ships returned. The 
tale of his voyage is one of the most thrilling and 
interesting in history. 

These voyages would n.ot huve been possible 
had it not been for the mariner's compass, by which 
the sailor can steer his ship in fair weather or in 
storm, by day or by night. And without gun- 
powder and muskets the explorers would not have 
been able to conquer the fierce natives that they 
found on every coast. It was the savage tribes in 
the Philippine Islands that killed JMagellan, and 
the first colony that Columbus established in Hayti 
was soon destroyed by the Indians. 

A new period in the history of the world begins 
with the voyage of Columbus and the finding of the 
Indians. We call it modern history. Three great 
inventions mark the beginning of this perio:!, 
the printing press, the compass, and gunpowder. 

The story of printing has already been told in 
the Chapter on " The Revival of Learning." Both 
gunpowder and the compass wxre known in China 
at least 2,000 years before they were invented in 
Europe. The compass now in use was invented 
by Flavio Gioja (Fla'-vi-o Jo'-ya), an Italian, 
about 1300. A few years before this, gunpowder 
was discovered by Roger Bacon, a learned stu- 
dent and professor at Oxford, England. It was 
first used in war by the English at the battle of 
Cre'-cy in France, 1346. 



XXIII. PETER THE GREAT AND 
RUSSIA 

In the story of the Northmen we have seen how 
a pirate chief, Rurik, began the kingdom of Rus- 
sia. The Finns, living along the Baltic Sea, called 
the invaders Rustsi (pirates). From this came the 
word Russia. But the Mongols and Turks, who 
invaded Europe from time to time, completely 
crushed the little kingdom. The Russians were 
made slaves and forced to pay tribute for more 
than two hundred years. 

In the fifteenth century, Ivan the Great freed 
his country from the Tartars and built up a new 
kingdom at Moscow. In 1682 the greatest of the 
Russian rulers, Peter the Great, came to the throne 
of Muscovy, as the country was then called. Dur- 
ing his reign of forty-three years, he changed his 
little barbarous kingdom into a great and progres- 
sive modern empire. 

One of Peter's intimate friends was a Swiss 
named Lefort. Lefort had traveled widely, and 
he told Peter how affairs were managed in the 
great European nations. 

Peter's first work was to get seaports. His only 
port was Archangel, in the north. The harbor was 
frozen during the greater part of the year and 
was of little use. The Swedes held the Baltic, and 
the Tartars kept the region bordering on the Black 

216 



PETER THE GREAT AND RUSSIA 247 

Sea. In two expeditions Peter broke the Tartar 
power in the south and seized a port on the Sea of 
Azof. 

But he needed a fleet. The Russians had no 
ships and did not know how to build them. 

Peter determined to learn how. He disguised 
himself as a common laborer and went to Holland. 
The Dutch were the best shipbuilders in the world 
at that time. He hired himself to a rich shipbuilder 
at Amsterdam and helped to build a large vessel for 
the East Indian service. He learned the whole proc- 
ess of building a ship, from the laying of the keel 
to the rigging of the sails. 

After a time it leaked out that the active and 
hustling workman was the King of Russia. The 
Dutch called him Boss Peter. They have preserved 
the little house where he lived, and you may still 
see the two rooms where he cooked his food and 
slept. 

Peter was not content to learn one thing. He 
also studied medicine, learned to pull teeth, and 
studied the manufacture of paper, flour, and the 
construction of mills and printing presses. In 
fact, every art and industry that he thought might 
be of use to build up his own country was care- 
fully studied. He was not interested in war, but 
later he became a good soldier. 

From Holland he went to England. King 
William III gave him a beautiful vessel fitted out 



PETER THE GREAT AND RUSSIA 249 

for war, and arranged a mock naval battle to show 
him how to use it. When Peter departed he slipped 
into the king's hand a large and beautiful ruby of 
great value. 

Ivan the Great had organized a powerful com- 
pany of guards called the Strel'-it-zes. This im- 
perial, bodyguard reminds us of the Pretorian 
Guard at Rome. When the government did not 
suit them, they rebelled and set up a king that they 
liked better. 

While Peter was studying naval tactics in Eng- 
land, he heard that the Strelitzes had revolted. He 
hurried back to Moscow, and with his own sword 
he cut off the heads of a hundred of the rebels in 
an hour. He then disbanded them altogether and 
organized a new army. 

The dress of the Russians was like that of the 
Turks. They wore long robes with wide sleeves, 
and long beards were the height of fashion. Peter 
wanted them to dress like the people of civilized 
countries, and made a law that every man except the 
priests should cut off his beard. He ordered the 
long robes to be shortened, and the loose sleeves to 
be made smaller. When some of his courtiers ob- 
jected to this new regulation, Peter took a pair of 
shears and clipped off their beards and skirts him- 
self. He also placed barbers and tailors at the 
gates of the city, and when a long-bearded Russian 
came along he was seized and shaved. 



250 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

The results of Peter's travels were now seen in 
other changes. He began by building schools and 
factories. Then he laid out roads and canals, and 
established a postal system. The gold and silver 
were made into new coins, mining was begun, and 
new laws were made, giving the people of each 
town a share in the government. 

While Peter was busy with these things, a boy 
of fifteen years became King of Sweden. Several 
kings of Europe thought this a good time to rob 
Sweden of some of her land. Peter wanted the 
Baltic coast as a place to build a new capital, and 
to afford harbors for his ships. 

But the new king was Charles XII, who turned 
out to be a young Alexander. He attacked Peter 
at Narva, and with eight thousand men beat twenty 
thousand Russians. 

" The Swedes have beaten us this time," said 
Peter, " but they will soon teach us how to beat 
them." And they did. At Pul'-to-wa, the Rus- 
sians so defeated the army of Charles that he fled 
into Turkey with less than a dozen men. 

Peter then filled in the marshes along the river 
Neva and built the city of St. Petersburg. This 
brought Russia into the midst of European affairs, 
and made her one of the greatest of the nations. 

One more war, this time against Persia, brought 
to Russia the Caspian Sea and the land around it. 
Two years later Peter died of a fever which he got 



PETER THE GREAT AND RUSSIA 



251 



by exposing himself in assisting some shipwrecked 
sailors in the Gulf of Finland. 

Forty years after his death (1762) another 
great sovereign came to the throne of Russia. This 
was Catherine the Great, the ablest woman that 




The Battle of Pultowa. 



ever sat on a throne. She was fully as active and 
far more wicked than the great Peter himself. 

There is only one of Catherine's many deeds 
that we shall now try to remember, and that one is 
the seizure of Poland. With Prussia and Austria 
she divided that kingdom, and each of the robbers 



252 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

took a part. The Poles fought desperately under 
their patriotic leader, Kos-ci-us'-ko, but they were 
defeated by the three giants who seized their 
country. 

" Now," said Catherine, " I have a doormat on 
which I may step when I go into Europe." 

Poland was ruled by a Russian governor at 
first, and the people were allowed to have their own 
laws and the Catholic religion. But in 1832 they 
rebelled on account of harsh government. 

After a series of bloody battles they were put 
down, and eighty thousand of them were exiled to 
Siberia in one year. 

The Roman Catholic religion was suppressed 
and the Greek Catholic faith forced upon the 
people. 

The Russian Government is still the harshest in 
Europe. Some day the people will no doubt rise 
up and demand liberty. 



XXIV. PEOPLE AGAINST KINGS 

There was once an uprising of the people in an 
old city of Europe. Some of the rebels were seized 
by the soldiers, and one poor stuttering fellow was 
brought before the king. 

" Why have you rebelled against me? " sternly 
asked the king. 

" For t-t-to-o m-much taxes," was the ]30or fel- 
low's reply. 

" Too much taxes " has been the cause of much 
trouble between people and kings. It has brought 
about revolutions, or changes of government. The 
revolutions in England, in France, and in America 
were all caused by too much taxes. The people will 
put up longer with a king who takes their lives 
than they will with one who takes their money. 

A great deal of the old history is about kings 
and nobles. But in the modern history we find 
more about the people. In most countries they 
were kept under by the king, the priests, and the 
soldiers. But gradually they have gained a share 
in the affairs of government. Usually they gained 
their rights through bloody wars and deeds of vio- 
lence, for tyrants do not give up power easily. 

Let us see now how the people threw off the 
rule of their kings in some of the leading nations. 

After the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the Scotch 

253 



254 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

king, James Stuart, became King James I of Eng- 
land. He believed that a king had the right to 
make any laws he pleased, whether the people liked 
them or not. He also thought he had a right to 
tax them without their consent. James's son, 
Charles I, succeeded him in 1625. 

In England, as we have learned, there was a 
body of men called the Parliament. Every county 
and city chose two men to represent them in this 
Parliament. These men made up the House of 
Commons. The nobles and bishops composed the 
House of Lords. No tax could be raised without 
the consent of the House of Commons. 

As soon as Charles began to reign, he levied 
taxes on the people without asking the House of 
Commons. They then drew up a document called 
the Petition of Right, and made the king sign it. 
In this he agreed not to take money from the 
people in any way without the consent of Par- 
liament. 

But the king broke his word and taxed the 
people more than ever. At last they and the Par- 
liament began war against him. The great leader 
in this civil war was Oliver Cromwell. For three 
years the war went on. Cromwell won the battles 
of Marston Moor and Nase'-by. The king was 
taken prisoner, and put to death as a " tyrant, 
traitor, murderer, and public enemy." 

England then became a republic with CromWell 



256 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

at the head of it. He was called Protector of the 
Commonwealth. 

After his death, the son of Charles I became 
king. He ruled according to the laws of the coun- 
try. But his brother, James II, came to the throne 
in 1685, and began to iiile in the old way, without 
the consent of the Parliament. 

James tried to change the religion of the coun- 
try, as well as to collect taxes unlawfully. He put 
many people to death without a fair trial. The 
people soon came to hate him so much that they de- 
clared the throne vacant and made William of Or- 
ange king. William was King of Holland, and a 
descendant of William the Silent, who had fought 
against Philip II. This change of kings is called 
the English Revolution. 

Since that event the people have gained more 
and more power in England, until to-day they 
have entire charge of the government, while the 
king has very little power left. 

In 1775 the American colonies rebelled against 
another English king, George III. He tried to do 
what the Stuart kings had done — tax them without 
their consent. A long war followed, which we call 
our Revolutionary War. The colonies won and 
became the United States of America. The great 
leader of the colonial armies was George Wash- 
ington, who took command at Boston in 1775. By 
March of the following year he had driven the Brit- 



PEOPLE AGAINST KINGS 257 

ish out of that city. But he was defeated in Au- 
gust, 1776, in the battle of Long Island, and was 
obliged to retreat across the Delaware River into 
Pennsylvania. In the meantime the Declaration 
of Independence had been signed at Philadelphia, 
July 4, 1776. For five years longer the war went 
on until the British were surrounded at Yorktown, 
and their general, Lord Cornwallis, compelled to 
surrender. The independence of the new republic 
of the United States was acknowledged when a 
treaty of peace was made in 1783. 

George III was the last English king who had 
very much power. The Parliament declared that 
the " King's power had increased too much and 
ought to be diminished." And they speedily di- 
minished it. 

The next uprising of the people took place in 
France. Again it was " too much taxes " that 
caused the trouble. France had been governed by 
kings since the time of Clovis, twelve hundred years 
before. The king was assisted in the government 
by a council of his nobles, and by an assembly of 
the people. We have read how all the freemen 
met in the time of Charlemagne to assist the king. 
But after Louis XI conquered his vassals he took 
all the power himself, and neither the nobles nor 
the people had anything to do in ruling the country. 

From 1643 to 1715 Louis XIV had been king. 
The French called him the Magnificent. He ruled 



PEOPLE AGAINST KINGS 259 

alone. Such a government we call an absolute 
monarchy. He fought long and expensive wars 
with England, Germany, and the Netherlands. 
These wars made the taxes very heavy. 

There were about one hundred thousand nobles 
and priests in France who owned one half the land. 
They paid no tax at all. The people who owned 
the other half of the land paid all the taxes. The 
nobles as well as the king taxed the people. It was 
said: " The nobles take half of the people's money 
and the king takes the rest." 

They had to work on roads and pubHc works 
without pay. They were taxed for everything 
they bought ; and every peasant who sold any vege- 
tables or grain had to pay a tax when he took them 
to market. 

Black bread with a piece of onion to flavor it 
was their food. Besides, they had to make the flour 
in the lord's mill and bake the bread in his oven, 
and pay well for the privilege. They were not 
allowed to build fences to protect their crops, be- 
cause that interfered with the lord's hunting. At 
night they had to stay up and thrash the frog- 
ponds, so that the croaking of the frogs might not 
disturb the lord's sleep. 

During the reign of Louis XV (171.5-74), 
things grew worse and worse. He was wicked and 
wasted the public money. England took away 
the French colonies in India and America. France 



260 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

lost her fleets and armies. More taxes were laid 
on the suffering people until they became rebel- 
lious and desperate from starvation. 

" After me comes the deluge," said Louis to his 
courtiers on his deathbed. And a deluge of fire 
and blood did come in the shape of the French 
Revolution. 

The next king was Louis XVI, the grandson 
of Louis XV. He was married to Marie Antoi- 
nette, the daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria. 
A boy and girl became the rulers of a country that 
needed the genius of a Csesar or a Napoleon. 

The king called the clergy and the nobles to- 
gether to see what could be done to pay the great 
debt that had been brought on by the foolish wars. 
But they refused to pay a cent of tax, and the peo- 
ple could not pay auy more. 

Next the States General was summoned. This 
included, besides the nobles and the clergy, the rep- 
resentatives of the people, who were called the 
Third Estate. 

The Third Estate soon took the power into their 
own hands, and called themselves the National As- 
sembly. The king attempted to send them home, 
but they declared that they would never go till they 
had reformed the government of France. They 
drew up a constitution, or law, which took away 
from the king the power to levy taxes, and gave 
it to an assembly of the people. This government 



PEOPLE AGAINST KINGS 261 

lasted only a year. Then a new assembly, called 
the National Convention, met in 1792. 

During this time (1789-92) the king had en- 
listed a bodyguard of German and Swiss soldiers. 
This angered the people. They took the Bastile 
(Bas-teer), or state prison where the tyrannical 
kings had kept their prisoners, and leveled it to 
the ground. The king and queen were made pris- 
oners in Paris. Once they nearly succeeded in es- 
caping from France, but they were captured and 
brought back and kept as prisoners in the palace 
of the Tuileries (Twe'-le-riz). Many French 
nobles had fled from the country to get help to 
restore the king to power. Prussia and Austria 
sent armies to Paris under the Duke of Bruns- 
wick. But the Revolutionary generals defeated 
him. 

A Paris mob attacked the Tuileries and killed 
the Swiss guards to the last man. Then about ten 
thousand royalists, that is, those who favored the 
king, were taken from the jails and killed. 

When the National Convention met, they abol- 
ished the monarchy, and made France a republic. 
The king and queen were put to death. Now be- 
gan the time that is called the Reign of Terror. 
During this period everybody suspected of favor- 
ing a return to the old government was beheaded. 
An instiTiment called the guiF-lo-tine was invented 
for cutting off heads quickly, and a special sewer 



262 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

had to be made to carry off the blood. It was Hke 
fhe days of Marius and Sulla in ancient Rome. 

In the city of Nantes (Nants), thirty thousand 
were killed. Killing one at a time took too long, 
so the prisoners were lined up and mowed down 
with cannon. Sometimes a ship would be loaded 
with victims and sunk in the river. Three hundred 
little children were drowned at one time in the river 
Loire. 

At last Robes-pierre", the leader in the work of 
blood, was himself sent to the guillotine. The peo- 
ple came to their senses again, and the work of the 
mob was over. 

In October, 1795, the Convention met to form 
another government for France. Its members had 
seen enough blood, but the Paris mob, " Terror- 
ists " they were called, had not. About forty 
thousand men and women surrounded the palace 
where the Convention met. They forced back the 
troops, and the members were in fear of their 
lives. 

Two years before this, when the French army 
had captured the city of Toulon, a young officer 
of the artillery had shown great skill in planting 
the guns. There was one man in the Convention 
who had been present. 

" I know of a man," cried he, " who can pro- 
tect us from the mob." 

That man was Napoleon Bo'-na-parte, a native 



PEOPLE AGAINST KINGS 26/5 

of the island of Corsica. He was then twenty-six 
years of age. The Convention put him in com- 
mand of the troops, and adjourned until the next 
day. During the night Napoleon planted cannon 
facing every street that led to the Tuileries palace 
and charged them with grape shot. 

The next day came, and the Convention met. 
The mob again advanced, determined to kill the 
men who were trying to restore order. They were 
allowed to approach within a hundred yards; when 
boom! whiiF! they were met by a hail of shot that 
sent them flying back in wild disorder, leaving hun- 
dreds of dead and dying on the ground. The mob 
and France had found a master. 

The young man who thus became famous in a 
day was born in the island of Corsica in 1769. He 
was educated in a French military school and ap- 
pointed to the army at the age of sixteen. In 
school he was noted for industry and perseverance. 
A hard problem was once given to his class. Napo- 
leon shut himself in his room and worked at it for 
seventy-two hours, and solved it. 

The Directory at once made him commander 
of the National Guard. It was his business to de- 
fend Paris. But the enemies of France were com- 
ing on every side, and he was first sent to Italy to 
meet the Austrians and Sar-din'-i-ans. 

In eighteen months he had compelled both coun- 
tries to make peace. He had won fourteen battles. 



264 



OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 



and taken a hundred thousand prisoners with two 
thousand pieces of cannon. 

France then declared war against England, and 
Napoleon was put in command. He took a fleet 
and army to Egypt, intending to take possession 




Napoleon at School. 

of that country, and then to attack the English pos- 
sessions in India. 

But there he failed. Admiral Nelson destroyed 
his fleet in the Battle of the Nile, and Napoleon re- 
turned to Paris. The people received him joy- 
fully. The Directory had failed to govern success- 
fully, and Napoleon drove them out. He then took 
charge of afl'airs himself. He was called the 



PEOPLE AGAINST KINGS 265 

" First Consul,** There wera two other consuls, but 
Napoleon ha4 all the power. 

Austria had begun war again, but was defeated 
in the battles of Ma-ren'-go and Ho-hen-lin'-den 
and forced to make peace. 

Napoleon was made First Consul for life in 
1802 by a vote of the people. In 1804 they chose 
him Emperor of France. From that time until 
the Battle of Waterloo, in 1815, he was constantly 
engaged in war. The story of Napoleon's life is 
a story of battles. 

Let us see what these wars were about. It was 
a rule in Europe that no one country should be al- 
lowed to become too strong, for fear it might seize 
upon its weaker neighbors. This was called keep- 
ing the balance of power. The balance of power 
was then in favor of France. Napoleon had seized 
lands in Italy and Germany which did not belong 
to France, and the other countries joined together 
to make him give up the conquered territories. 

England, Russia, Austria, and Sweden made 
the first great attempt to overthrow him. 

To fight England, he must invade that coun- 
try. So he gathered a great army at Bou-logne', 
and was only waiting for his ships to come to take 
his army across the English Channel. But Nelson 
destroyed his fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar, and 
Napoleon was obliged to give up the attempt. 

He then marched his army into Austria, where 



'EOPLE AGAINST KINGS 



267 



he defeated one hundred thousand Russians and 
Austrians at Aus'-ter-htz. It was his greatest 
victory. 

In 1806 Prussia joined the alhance against him. 
In two battles he crushed that country and took 
possession of Berhn. 

While there he visited the tomb of the famous 
fighter, Frederick the Great. The sword of the 
great general was kept suspended over his grave. 

Napoleon took it down and said: 

" I will send this to France as a relic." 

Said one of his generals, "If I were you I 
should keep it for myself." 

" Have I not then a sword of my own? " asked 
the emperor. 

The next year (1807) Russia was completely 
overwhelmed at the Battle of Fried'-land and com- 
pelled to ask for peace. 

The emperor and the czar met on a raft. " Do 
you hate England? " asked Napoleon. 

" As much as you do," answered the czar. 

" Then," said Napoleon, " peace is soon made." 

He next began war against Spain and Portu- 
gal to get control of those countries. This war was 
called the " Peninsular War." 

England sent an army under Sir Arthur Wel- 
lesley ( afterwards Duke of Wellington ) to the aid 
of these countries. After a long struggle Napo- 
leon's generals were defeated and driven out. 

During the Peninsular War Russia had broken 



PEOPLE AGAINST KINGS 269 

her agreement with Napoleon, so he invaded that 
country with half a million of soldiers. The Rus- 
sians allowed him to march as far as Moscow, and 
they then burned the city. But they would not 
fight him. They destroyed all the food, and made 
the country through which he must march a desert. 

Winter came on and Napoleon had to retreat to 
France. In that terrible retreat he lost three hun- 
dred thousand men. 

Again his enemies joined against him and de- 
feated him at Leip'-sic. He then resigned the em- 
pire and went to the little island of Elba to live. 

But he broke his agreement to live a private 
life and escaped to France. He soon raised a fresh 
army and hurried to meet the English and Prus- 
sians in Belgium. 

At Waterloo he met the English under the 
Duke of Wellington. After a stubborn battle he 
was defeated and his army driven from the field. 

He was not allowed to escape again, but was 
taken in an English vessel to the island of St. Hel- 
ena. There he died. May 1, 1821. 

Louis XVIII, a brother of Louis XVI, was 
then placed upon the throne a second time. He was 
succeeded by Charles X. Charles was driven out 
in 1830, and Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, was 
chosen king. He was driven out in 1848 and a 
republic established for the second time. Louis 
Napoleon, nephew of the great general, was chosen 
president. 



XXV. THE SETTLEMENT OF 
NEW LANDS 

After the route to the Indies was discovered 
by the Portuguese, and a new world found by Co- 
kimbus, the nations of Europe made haste to send 
ships and colonists to the new lands. Although 
these lands were occupied already by other races, 
it was considered right for Christian nations to 
drive out the heathen and take their lands. The 
Portuguese were the first to establish trading ports 
along the coast of Africa. They also settled in 
the islands of Java, Sumatra, and in the Moluccas. 
When Philip II conquered Portugal all these col- 
onies of Portugal became Spanish. 

The Dutch were famous merchants and ship- 
builders, and when Philip made war on them on 
account of their religion, they sent their ships to the 
East and seized all the Spanish settlements. Soon 
all the tea, coiFee, and spices of the Indies were 
in the hands of the Dutch merchants, and they 
grew rich by selling them to the nations of Eu- 
rope. 

The Dutch East India Company employed 
Henry Hudson to look for a shorter road to the 
Indies. He sailed west across the Atlantic Ocean 
and entered the Delaware and Hudson rivers. He 
took possession of all the land between these rivers 
for Holland. They named it New Netherlands. 

270 



PEOPLE AGAINST KINGS 271 

The English king, Henry VII, sent out John 
Cabot to find a western route to the Indies. Ca- 
bot sailed along the coast of North America 
and claimed all that part of it lying between 
Nova Scotia and the Spanish possession on the 
south. 

Columbus had discovered the West India is- 
lands and the coast of South America. Ponce de 
Leon found the coast of Florida. Cortez con- 
quered Mexico, and Pizarro, Peru. And so, the 
southern half of the New World came into the pos- 
session of Spain. The Pope had divided the new 
lands between Spain and Portugal by drawing 
a line straight around the globe, near the fifteenth 
meridian. This gave Brazil and the East Indies 
to Portugal. But all the Western world belonged 
to Spain. 

But France, England, and Holland paid no 
a ttention to the Pope's division of the world. It is 
told of Francis I, the French king, that he asked 
Philip to " show him the will of Father Adam by 
which the New World was divided between Spain 
and Portugal." The will was not found, evidently, 
for Francis, too, sent out explorers, who sailed up 
the St. Lawrence River and discovered the great 
fisheries along the coast of Newfoundland. This 
part of the New World became known as Canada, 
and was settled by the French. 

The trade with the mainland of India was first 



272 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

in the control of Portugal and Holland. But 
France and England soon took the greater part 
of it from them. The English East India Com- 
pany was established by Queen Elizabeth in 1600. 
The merchants of this company built trading sta- 
tions at Ma-dras' and Cal-cut'-ta in India. 

From 1689 to 1782 France and England were 
almost constantly at war. These wars were due to 
the ambition of the kings of France, Louis XIV 
and Louis XV, to make France more powerful 
than the other nations. The war in America was 
decided by the capture of Quebec in 1759. General 
Wolfe and his army climbed the steep cliiFs above 
the city during the night. In the morning they 
waited for the French to attack them on the Plains 
of Abraham. Montcalm, the French commander, 
led his men against the foe, but the French were 
defeated, and both Montcalm and Wolfe were 
killed. A single monument has been built to the 
memory of both. 

Only two years before this, in 1757, Robert 
Clive had won the battle of Plassey in India. " This 
made the English supreme in the Valley of the 
Ganges River, the richest part of India. The Eng- 
lish continued to take town after town until now 
they rule the whole of India. They owe their vast 
empire in America and India to James Wolfe and 
Robert Clive more than to any other two men. 
Peace was made in 1763, and England made 



p 




274 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

France give up nearly all her colonies in America 
and India. 

The English also gradually drove the Dutch 
out of their African colonies. In 1806 they seized 
Cape Colony, and the Dutch moved into Natal. 
Then England took this also. Finally the Boers 
(Boors) , as the Dutch were called, crossed the Vaal 
River and settled the Orange Free State and the 
Transvaal. These colonies were also taken by 
England at the end of the Great Boer War in 
1901. British East Africa, Egypt, and the Sudan, 
are also under the control of England. 

About 1775 the English began to settle Aus- 
tralia. Gold was found there in 1851, and the 
country grew rapidly. Sheep were found to thrive 
in the dry climate, and stock-raising has become 
the leading occupation. The English have also 
settlements in the islands of the Pacific, in the East 
Indies, and on the coast of China. About one-fifth 
of the land surface of the globe is under the control 
of Great Britain. 

When the power of the Turks began to grow 
less, France crossed the Mediterranean to attack 
the pirates who had for several centuries made that 
sea unsafe for merchants. She took Algiers and 
kept it. Later she seized Algeria and Tunis, while 
Italy captured Tripoli from the Turks in 1911. 

The discovery of the New World and the In- 



THE SETTLEMENT OF NEW LANDS 275 

dies came at a time when many people in Europe 
were most anxious to find new homes. The Span- 
ish were led to go to the colonies in America by the 
discovery of gold and silver in Mexico and Peru. 
The Dutch were content with the profits of the 
spice trade. Great coffee plantations grew up in 
Java and Sumatra, and the Dutch farmers found 
them very profitable. The French began a valu- 
able fur trade with the Indians, and the fisheries 
kept thousands of men busy. 

The religious wars in Europe drove a multitude 
of settlers to the New World. Protestants from 
Germany, France, and England emigrated to 
America. During the reign of the tyrannical 
English king Charles I, the Pilgrims and Puritans 
left England and settled in Massachusetts. The 
Quakers and Catholics also were persecuted, and 
found homes in Pennsylvania and Maryland. 
When Cromwell ruled, the friends of the Stuart 
kings, called Royalists or Cavaliers, came in thou- 
sands and built up the Virginia colony. 

Thousands of people in England were out of 
work. The land had been taken away from the 
farmers by the landlords and turned into sheep 
pastures. This left many laborers out of employ- 
ment, and they were glad to find a home in the 
American colonies. 

The Thirty Years' War in Germany compelled 
many Germans to leave the country. The Hugue- 



276 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

nots, or French Protestants, were persecuted and 
driven out of France by the CathoHc kings. Many 
went into Germany and Holland, and still more 
found homes in America. All of these causes 
brought thousands of good, industrious settlers to 
the new lands. 

The new colonies grew rapidly, and New Eng- 
land, New France, New Netherlands, and New 
Spain added much honor and wealth to the old 
countries of Europe. After a time many of the 
colonies across the ocean broke away from the 
mother countries and made themselves into inde- 
pendent nations. 



XXVI. THE NEW GERMAN EMPIRE 

A GREAT deal has been said in this book about 
a German Empire. The old empire was a disor- 
derly empire, where rival kings were constantly 
engaged in war. The emperor always had hard 
work to keep his vassals in order. But the German 
Empire of to-day is a united, orderly, and well- 
governed nation. It was established in 1871, and 
the King of Prussia became the emperor. Prussia 
was the youngest of the German states, but be- 
came the strongest one. In this chapter we want 
to learn something about the growth of Prussia 
and how the new German Empire was formed. 

The old German Empire was always exposed 
to the attacks of savage people on the eastern bor- 
der. It was the custom of the emperors to appoint 
their bravest soldiers to rule over the mark, or bor- 
der land, in order to keep out invaders. This offi- 
cer was called markgraf, or count of the border. 
In the times of Charlemagne, there was a border 
state called the ost mark, or eastern border. Later 
this state was called ost reich, or Austria, meaning 
eastern kingdom. 

The markgraf was allowed to conquer as much 
of the enemy's land as he could and add it to his 
mark. So it came about that the border state be- 
came the largest and most powerful of the empire. 



278 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

In the twelfth century, the emperor appointed 
a daring soldier, Albert the Bear, to govern the 
north mark. He took the city of Branitu from 
the Wends, a Slavonic race, and from it he called 
his mark, Bran'-den-burg. When Albert's family 
died out, Brandenburg was given to Frederick of 
Ho-hen-zolF-ern, an ancestor of the present Ger- 
man emperor. In 1356 the Markgraf of Bran- 
denburg obtained the right to vote at the elec- 
tion of the emperor. This gave him the title of 
Elector. 

The greatest of the Electors of Brandenburg 
was Frederick William, a HohenzoUern, who be- 
gan to rule in 1640. In return for help which he 
gave to the King of Poland in a war, he received 
the Duchy of Prussia. This had been taken from 
the Slavonic tribes by the Teutonic knights, when 
they returned from the Crusades. Frederick, the 
son of Frederick William, was crowned at Konigs- 
berg, in 1688, as the first King of Prussia. 

The next king was a rough, despotic man also 
named Frederick William. He loved two things 
above all else, money and big soldiers. He had a 
regiment, called the Potsdam giants, numbering 
two thousand four hundred men. Some of them 
were eight feet tall. He hunted all Europe for big 
men, and wherever he heard of one, he induced him 
in some -way to join his famous regiment. 

He was always busy, rushing about, and look- 



THE NEW GERMAN EMPIRE 279 

ing over his shoulder right and left. If he saw 
anyone idle, or lounging about, he would give him 
a rap with his stick, and tell him to "be oiF and 
get to work!" He especially despised fine and 
showy clothes, and anyone who met him dressed 
in this way was pretty certain to get a caning. 
Though rough in his ways, he was very just, and 
he would not suffer the poor people to be wronged 
or injured in any way. 

His little son Frederick, who was to become 
Frederick the Great, had a harder time than most 
boys. He was fond of pictures and music — things 
which his father despised. He had a flute, but woe 
to him if his father caught him playing on it. The 
king wanted his son to study history, geography, 
mathematics, and about guns and war, for he in- 
tended to make a soldier of him. But Frederick 
liked Latin and French — languages which his 
father could see no use for. 

At last Frederick and his tutor, Kat'-te, planned 
to rim away to England to the court of his uncle, 
George 11. But the plan was discovered. The 
angry old king hanged Katte, and he came very 
near hanging Frederick too. For a long time he 
was kept in prison and fed on bread and water. 
When his sister Mina was married, he was re- 
leased, and his father seemed glad to have him 
about again. 

When Frederick William died, in 1740, Pros- 



280 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

sia was one of the strongest states in Europe. He 
left a well-filled treasury and a well-disciplined 
army of eighty thousand men. 

Frederick — of course he was not called the 
Great till after his death — soon showed that he had 
a genius for war. His first war began at once. 
The emperor, Charles VI of Austria, had left his 
throne to his daughter, Maria Theresa. Being a 
woman, the neighboring kings hoped to rob her of 
part of her possessions. In those days " right was 
the might of the strongest." Frederick wanted 
Si-le'-sia, as it bordered on his kingdom, so he 
marched his army into it and took possession. 
France, Spain, and Bavaria also made ready to 
seize other provinces. 

Thus beset with enemies, Maria Theresa ap- 
pealed to the Hungarian nobles. Dressed in 
mourning, with crown on her head and sword at 
her side, and carrying her infant son in her arms, 
she appeared before the Diet. She was a beautiful 
woman, and her beauty, her tears, and the pathetic 
and eloquent address she made, stirred the chival- 
rous Hungarian blood. In the old-time manner 
they clashed their swords upon their scabbards, and 
with uplifted blades, swore that they would die for 
their queen. 

England and Sardinia joined Austria in the 
war that followed. But when it ended, Silesia re- 
mained in the hands of Frederick. Prussia was 



THE NEW GERMAN EMPIRE 281 

never known to give up anything that she had once 
taken. 

But Maria Theresa determined to have revenge 
and to get Silesia. During the next eight years 
she was busy enhsting alHes on her side, while Fred- 
erick enlarged and disciplined his army. Then the 
Seven Years' War began. France, Russia, Po- 
land, Saxony, and Sweden fought with Austria, 
while Frederick had only the half-hearted support 
of England. 

Frederick, surrounded by enemies, attacked 
them with a vigor and success that earned him the 
title of Great. He beat the French at Ross'-bach, 
the Austrians at Leuthen ( Loi'-ten ) , and the Rus- 
sians at Zorn'-dorf. But then his fortune failed 
him. He lost two battles. The Russians and Aus- 
trians defeated him so badly at Ku'-ners-dorf that 
he wrote to his minister, " All is lost." The Rus- 
sians took Berlin. He defeated the Austrians 
again, but his treasury and his army were ex- 
hausted, and Spain, too, joined his enemies. 

At this point Peter III, a friend to Frederick, 
came to the throne of Russia. Peter said that 
he and Frederick together would " conquer the 
world." They won a victory, but Peter was mur- 
dered, and Russia called home her troops. 

By this time Frederick's enemies were also ex- 
hausted and ready for peace. It was made at Paris 
in 1763. It was this treaty that stripped France 



THE NEW GERMAN EMPIRE 283 

of her colonies. Frederick had won a reputation 
as the greatest general in Europe, and Silesia is 
still a part of the German Empire. 

Frederick ruled Prussia until 1786. He was 
a friend of the American colonies during the strug- 
gle for independence, and sent a sword to General 
George Washington. In his love for the common 
people, and in respect for their rights, he was like 
his father. In the beautiful street, " Unter den 
Linden," in Berlin, is a splendid bronze statue of 
Frederick on horseback. A copy of this statue 
was presented to the United States in 1904, and 
now stands in the city of Washington. 

During the wars of Napoleon, Prussia was ut- 
terly crushed by the battles of Jena (Ya'-na) and 
Auerstadt ( Ou'-er-stet ) . Half of her possessions 
were taken away and given to Napoleon's brother, 
Jerome, who was made King of West-pha'-li-a. 
But after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo by the 
English and Prussians, Prussia got back all that 
was lost. 

There were at this time (1815) thirty-nine Ger- 
man states, still separate and independent. But 
there was a congress or diet, composed of delegates 
from all these states, that had power to settle dis- 
putes among them, and could act on matters that 
concerned them all alike. 

The German people felt that the states ought 
to be joined together into one nation, instead of 



284 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

having thirty-nine nations. The leading German 
states were Prussia and Austria. Since the time 
of Frederick the Great they had been enemies. If 
the German states were to be united, it was clear 
that one of these rival states must remain out- 
side the union. It was like the case of two quar- 
relsome families. One house would not be big 
enough to hold both. 

In 1848 Austria had a war with her Hungarian 
subjects, who had revolted under the lead of Louis 
Kossuth. In early life Kossuth had been a law- 
yer and editor of a newspaper. The peasants of 
Hungary were serfs, and the country was gov- 
erned harshly by Austria. Kossuth wanted the 
peasants to be made free, and the people to have 
more rights. He had once been put into prison 
for printing a newspaper, and he wanted a free 
press. 

In 1848 there was a great uprising of the peo- 
ple through all Europe, demanding freedom and a 
share in the government. Kossuth at this time was 
a member of the Hungarian Diet. He now de- 
manded an independent government for Hungary. 
He became the head of the nation, raised armies, 
and made ready for war. In 1849 Hungary was 
declared independent of Austria. He won several 
victories over the Austrians, and would have be- 
come another Washington if Russia had not come 
to the aid of his enemies. A Russian army joined 



THE NEW GERMAN EMPIRE 



285 



the Austrians, and Kossuth was forced to surren- 
der, August 13, 1849. 

Kossuth fled into Turkey, and afterwards vis- 
ited England and America. He was welcomed 









^^^Bafeafc-i •'i'^IBl 




Bl 


rvT' 1 


■ 



Louis Kossuth. 



everywhere as a patriot and the hero of his country. 

We come now to the work of the greatest of 

German statesmen, Otto von Bismarck. It was 

he who united the German states and founded the 



286 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

German Empire. The King of Austria was presi- 
dent of the German Diet, but Prussia was really 
the strongest state. 

In 1861 William I became King of Prussia, 
and soon afterwards Bismarck became his Prime 
Minister. Bismarck had been a member of the Diet 
and minister to Russia and France. He was a 
shrewd, bold man, but he knew how to work secretly 
for his own ends, too. He had fully made up his 
mind to make Prussia the head of the German 
states, and to drive Austria out of German affairs. 

Year after year he added soldiers to the army 
until he had nearly half a million trained men. He 
made a secret treaty with the King of Sardinia to 
help against Austria, in case of war. He formed 
a new plan of government for Germany, leaving 
i^ustria out. 

When two nations want to fight, they will soon 
find something to fight about. In this case the 
quarrel was about the two provinces, HoF-stein and 
Schles'-wig. These had been taken from Denmark, 
Old Prussia and Austria could not agree as to the 
division of them. Austria wanted the question to 
be settled by the Diet, but Bismarck sent twenty 
thousand soldiers into Holstein and said that " only 
blood and iron could settle the question." 

The war called the " Austro-Prussian War " 
then began. Von Moltke, the commander of the 
German armies, had the war all planned out before 



THE NEW GERMAN EMPIRE 



287 



it began, and everything worked to perfection. 
The states that were the alHes of Austria were com- 
pelled to remain neutral. King George of Hano- 




Bismarck. 



ver refused, and his army was surrounded and 
taken prisoners. 

The three Prussian armies then took up their 
march toward Vienna. At the village of Sa-do'-wa 
they met the Austrian army. Several victories had 



288 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

been won, but tbe battle at Sadowa was decisive. 
A half million of men fought until noon without 
victory on either side. Then a fresh Prussian army 
arrived, and the Austrians were driven from the 
field. By the treaty of peace that King Francis 
Joseph was forced to make, Austria was no longer 
to take any part in the affairs of Germany. 

A union of the chief German states called the 
North German Union was now^ formed. The 
Prussian King was to be president of the union 
and command the armies. The king and Bismarck 
already knew where they would soon have need of 
armies. 

Louis Napoleon was elected president of the sec- 
ond French republic in 1848. This was called the 
year of revolutions, because there were so many 
of them. He made himself emperor in 1852, and 
was called Napoleon III. He saw^ how strong 
Prussia was growing, and hoped to be able to 
check her. He was anxious to extend France to 
the river Rhine. But when the French ambassador 
spoke to Bismarck about giving up the rest of 
Alsace to France, the man of " blood and iron " 
very gruffly refused to think of it. 

In 1870 something happened that brought on 
war between France and Germany. The crown of 
Spain was offered to a member of the House of 
Hohenzollern, that is, the Prussian royal family. 

Prince Leopold, to whom it was offered, re- 



THE NEW GERMAN EMPIRE 289 

fused to accept. But Napoleon III wanted King 
William to promise that no relative of his should 
occupy the Spanish throne. The French minister 
made this demand of the king" on a public street 
at Ems. The king told him " to see the ministry 
at Berlin." At Berlin, Bismarck dismissed the am- 
bassador with a rude refusal. 

France began to call her armies together at 
once. Every German state joined with Prussia, 
and a million of German soldiers were soon in the 
field. They were eager to avenge the wrongs that 
the first Napoleon had brought upon them fifty 
years before. The war with Austria lasted only 
seven weeks. This war lasted only eight. The 
French were beaten everywhere. The decisive bat- 
tle was fought at Sedan, where the French had to 
surrender ninety thousand men. Two months later 
they surrendered their main army, one hundred 
and seventy-six thousand men. Paris was then be- 
sieged and taken. 

Napoleon had surrendered his sword to King 
William at Sedan. He did not dare return to 
Paris, but at the close of the war fled to England. 
His empire was over, and for the third time France 
became a republic. 

On January 18, 1871, in the palace of the 
French kings at Ver-sailles', King William of 
Prussia was crowned Emperor of Germany. The 
German states were at last united to form a Ger- 
man nation. 



XXVII. HOW ITALY BECAME 
ONE NATION 

AxL during the JVIiddle Ages, that is, from 476 
to 1492, Italy had no king ruhng the whole coun- 
try like England or France. But each city had its 
own duke or prince. Rome and the near-by ter- 
ritory was ruled by the Pope. This state of affairs 
made the country weak. The stronger nations, es- 
pecially Spain, France, and Austria, overran Italy, 
seized upon such of the cities as they wanted, and 
added them to their own possessions. 

During the first half of the fourteenth century 
an attempt was made to unite the parts of Italy. 
At this time the residence of the popes was in 
France, and Rome was in great confusion, owing 
to the quarrels of leading families. These fami- 
lies built strong castles and behaved like the feudal 
barons of Germany. 

Nicolo di Rienzi is the hero of this first attempt 
to unite Italy. His brother, a boy, had been killed 
in the strife of the nobles, and he wished to be re- 
venged upon them. Rienzi was a persuasive orator, 
and he called the people together in secret meetings. 
He asked them to meet him in Rome on a certain 
day. On that day he appeared before them and 
read to them a form of government and laws that 
he had prepared. The people shouted their ap- 
proval. They chose him chief ruler, and called 

290 



HOW ITALY BECAME ONE NATION 291 

him Tribune, after the old Roman officer of the 
people. 

For a time Rienzi ruled Rome well. Then he 
planned to bring under his government the other 
Italian cities. INIany of them favored his plans. 
But the success he had seems to have turned his 
head. He began to take on the appearance of roy- 
alty. He called himself high-sounding titles, as, 
August Tribune, Defender of Italy, and Friend 
of JNIankind. Finally, he had himself publicly 
crowned with seven crowns. 

Soon the clergy, the nobles, and many of the 
people turned against him and drove him out of 
Italy. Affairs in Rome became as bad as before. 
After a time Rienzi returned. But he soon began 
to levy high taxes, and behaved as foolishly as be- 
fore. Then the people rebelled again. This time 
they pursued him to the capital and stabbed him 
to death. Petrarch, the poet who led in the revival 
of learning, said of him: 

" I loved his virtues. I praised his ends, and I 
looked forward to the rule of Rome over a united 
and happy Italy at peace with the world." 

During the rule of the free cities of Italy, more 
great men flourished than at any time in the world's 
history. Athens, in the time of Pericles, is the only 
city that can compare with Florence in the days of 
Rienzi. The greatest artists and sculptors, poets, 
and historians were born in that city. Dan'-te, 



292 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Raph'-a-el, and Michaelangelo were some of the 
greatest artists and poets. 

In geography and science, too, Italy took the 
lead. To prove this we need only name Colmn- 
bus, Vespucius, and Cabot among the discoverers. 

In the early times man thought the earth to be 
fixed and immovable, and that the sun and the stars 
revolved around it. An early astronomer, Ptolemy 
(Tol'-e-my), had taught this, and for many cen- 
turies men believed it. Toward the end of the six- 
teenth century a Polish astronomer, Co-per'-ni- 
cus, taught that the sun is the center around which 
the earth and the planets revolve, and that the stars 
are fixed. 

This idea of Copernicus was taught by the most 
famous of Italian scientific men, Gal-i-le'-o. The 
first discoveries of Galileo were made while he was 
a medical student at the University of Pi'-sa. 
There is a famous tower there that leans to one 
side on account of the foundation having settled 
unequally. It is known as the " leaning " tower. 
From the top of this tower Galileo would drop 
objects of different weight and material. He 
found that two objects of the same size and shape 
would strike the ground at the same time, no mat- 
ter if one weighed more than the other. 

He observed the swaying of a large chandelier 
in the cathedral. It suggested to him the pendu- 
lum, which is used in measuring time. But Gali- 



HOW ITALY BECAME ONE NATION 293 

leo's greatest work was the invention of the tele- 
scope, an instrument that makes distant objects 
seem near. With it he discovered the moons of 
Jupiter, and watched them revolve around that 
planet. He also saw the black spots on the sun, 
and could tell by the movement of these spots that 
the sun turns on an axis like the earth. 

He was the first to see the mountains and val- 
leys on the surface of the moon. The telescope 
enabled him to see thousands of stars that could 
not be seen by the naked eye. 

Galileo became nearly blind in his old age. 
John Milton, the greatest of English poets, went 
to see him when, as a young man, he traveled in 
Italy. The old philosopher took pleasure in ex- 
plaining to the young Milton the mystery of the 
sun, the planets, and their motions. 

Before his death, in 1642, Italy had become the 
most wicked country in Europe. Nowhere else 
were there so many murders, poisonings, and revo- 
lutions. Rulers were treacherous, and no man's 
word could be trusted. 

Much of this wickedness was caused by bad gov- 
ernment. Early in the nineteenth centmy. Napo- 
leon put the Pope in prison and added Italy to the 
French Empire, but after his defeat it was given 
back to its former owners. In the peace which came 
to Europe at the end of the NajDoleonic wars, in 



294 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

1815, the rulers of the nations banded together to 
put down all opposition to their governments. Ex- 
hausted by the long reign of disorder, the people 
submitted for a time. Then the opportunity was 
given for a gradual and orderly advancement in 
self-government. 

Instead of this, however, a distrust of the people 
and a repression of their desires were conspicuous 
in the governments of the nations of Continental 
Europe. The pent-up force of the people's will 
grew stronger with the years, and was certain to 
burst forth in revolutionary uprisings sooner or 
later. The very map of Europe was an absurdity. 

The Austrian Empire was a patchwork made 
up of many nationalities. There was no such thing 
as an Austrian language or Austrian blood. Italy, 
on the other hand, was divided among numerous 
governments despite its unity of language, litera- 
ture, and history. Venice and the northern part be- 
longed to Austria ; the Pope ruled the central part ; 
the south was called the Kingdom of Naples, and 
was ruled by a king of the French Royal house, 
the Bourbons. The northwestern part, called 
Piedmont, was part of the domain of Victor 
Emmanuel I, King of Sardinia. 

The French had given Italy a taste of liberty, 
and when the old rulers began to rule harshly, there 
were soon mutterings of discontent. 



296 



OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 



Plots and societies were soon formed to over- 
throw the tyrants. Two of the most noted leaders 
of the patriots were Joseph Mazzini (Mat-se'-ne) 
and Joseph Ga-ri-bar-di. They founded a secret 



■ " X 




k ^^ 






I 




k 


liHI 


,#f 


1^ 


w" 



Garibaldi. 



society called Young* Italy, whose object was to 
fight for the freedom and unity of Italy whenever 
and wherever the chance came. Another older so- 
ciety was the Car-bo-na'-ri, or charcoal-burners. 



HOW ITALY BECAME ONE NATION 297 

These societies stirred up many revolts, but all 
attempts to obtain rights for the people were put 
down by the troops of Austria. Mazzini and Gari- 
baldi had to flee from Italy to save their lives. 
Garibaldi spent fourteen years in South America, 
where he married a Spanish girl, Anita. In peace 
or in war, this devoted wife was always with him 
until her death. 

In 1849 he returned to Rome where he stirred 
up the people to resist the French and the Aus- 
trians. When he saw that he was sure to be de- 
feated, he led five thousand of his men through the 
enemy to join the Sardinian king, Victor Emman- 
uel II, in the north. The Austrians triumphed 
again over conquered Italy. 

Victor Emmanuel had for his minister a shrewd 
statesman named Count Ca-vour'. Cavour in- 
duced Napoleon III to help drive Austria out of 
Italy. Sardinia had helped France in the Crimean 
War (p. 220) , and now France returned the favor. 
The armies of France and Sardinia won two great 
victories over the Austrians at Ma-gen'-ta and at 
Sol-fe-ri'-no. Austria gave up all her Italian pos- 
sessions, except Venice. That city and territory she 
was soon to lose also. 

In 1860 came one of the romantic adventures 
of Garibaldi. The people of Naples and of Sicily 
had rebelled against their king. Gathering a thou- 
sand of his men, the hero of the " red shirt " sailed 



298 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

from Genoa for Sicily. He drove the troops of the 
king out of Sicily. Then he crossed for Naples, 
where the people welcomed him as their saviour. 
A vote was taken, and the people of Naples and 
Sicily all agreed to join the kingdom of Victor 
Emmanuel II. 

The next step in uniting Italy was made in 
1866, at the close of the Seven Weeks' War. Ca- 
vour and Bismarck had agreed to make Austria 
give up Venice, and it was done. 

The final step was the most important of all. 
The capital had been first at Turin, then at Flor- 
ence. Rome was still held by the Pope, who was 
protected by a French army. 

When the Franco-Prussian War began, in 1870, 
Napoleon III withdrew his troops from Rome to 
fight Germany. Victor Emmanuel at once gave 
notice to the Pope that Rome would now be made 
the capital of the Italian kingdom. The people of 
Rome voted to join the new kingdom. Thus the 
domains of the popes, over which they had ruled 
since the time of Pepin, King of the Franks, were 
taken from them. It was the last stroke, Victor 
Emmanuel at last ruled over a united Italy ; from 
the Alps to the Mediterranean his rule was gladly 
accepted. 



XXVIII. THE TURKS 

The city of Constantine on the Bosporus came 
into the hands of the Turks in 1453, and is still a 
Mohammedan city. Five times each day from the 




Calling to Prayer. 

tower of each of the five hundred mosques of the 
city, the voice of the muezzin, or priest, may be 
heard calling the people to prayer: 

" God is great; there is but one God; Moham- 

299 



300 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

med is the prophet of God. Prayer is better than 
sleep; come to prayer! " 

Every good ^Mohammedan then turns his face 
toward jNIecca, the birthplace of the prophet, and 
repeats a prayer. 

The Turks are the only people of Europe who 
are not Christians. They have always illtreated 
the Christians who live in their country. This per- 
secution has led to many wars, w^hich have ended 
in taking away from Turkey several of her prov- 
inces. The Turks would have been driven out of 
Europe long ago if the Christian nations could 
have agreed as to who should have their capital city. 

In some ways Constantinople is the most impor- 
tant city in Europe. One reason why it is impor- 
tant is because it controls the entrance to the Black 
Sea. Then, the nation that owns Constantinople 
can send ships to any part of the eastern INIediter- 
ranean, and to the mouth of the Nile. The Suez 
Canal has become the great highway to the Indies. 
More ships pass through this canal than any other. 
England depends upon it to reach India, her great- 
est colony. Now, a strong nation in control of 
Constantinople and the Black Sea could easily 
send war vessels and seize the Suez Canal. When 
Turkey was a strong nation, she would not allow 
any ships of other nations to sail on the eastern 
JMediterranean. Now she is a weak nation and can- 
not do this. 



o 

o 

cw 
P 

a 

5' 
o 




302 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

Russia has made many attempts to drive out 
the Turks and get Constantinople for herself. But 
England and France have prevented this, for fear 
that Russia would try to shut their ships out of the 
Mediterranean and the Suez Canal. 

The meaning of the " Eastern Question " is 
this: if the Turks are driven out of Europe, what 
nation shall have Constantinople? 

In 1820 Turkey was greatly weakened by a 
revolt among the imperial guard of the sultan. 
This body of men was called the jan'-i-za-ries. Sev- 
eral times they had rebelled and put the sultan to 
death. At last Mohammed II determined to get 
rid of them. Eight thousand were penned up in 
their barracks and burned. Twenty thousand more 
were executed or exiled. The rest were disbanded 
and scattered. 

In 1825 Greece rebelled against Turkey and 
gained her independence. The hero of this war 
was Marco Bozzaris (bot'za-res), who is sometimes 
called the Leonidas of modern Greece. His great- 
est deed was a night attack on the Turkish army, 
in which he routed them and captured their camp. 
It was his last battle. 

' ' They fought like brave men, long and well ; 
They piled that ground with Moslem slain ; 
They conquered, but Bozzaris fell 
Bleeding at every vein. 



THE TURKS 303 

" Bozzaris, with the storied brave, 

Greece nutured in her glory's prime, 
Rest thee ! There is no prouder grave, 
Even in her own proud dime. 

" We tell thy doom without a sigh, 

For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's, 
One of the few — the innnortal names, 
That were not born to die. " 

Turkey had been further weakened after the 
Greek rebellion. Me'-hem-et Ali, the sultan's vice- 
roy in Egypt, had rebelled against his lord. He 
had destroyed the sultan's fleet and robbed him 
of half his possessions. JVIehemet even threatened 
Constantinople. If England and other European 
nations had not stopped him, he would have made 
himself master of the whole Turkish Empire. 

The bad treatment of the Christians living in 
Turkey led to several wars with Russia. In 1853 
Nicholas I, the Czar of Russia, proposed to Eng- 
land to drive out the Turks and divide up the coun- 
try between them. When England refused, the 
czar began a war against Turkey " to protect the 
Christians," he said. But England and France 
thought what he wanted was Constantinople, and 
they joined the Turks against him. This war is 
called the Cri-me'-an War, because it was fought 
mainly on the peninsula of Cri-me'-a. 

The French and English defeated the Russians 
in nearly every battle. 



304 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

At the battle of Bal-a-kla'-va occurred the fa- 
mous *' charge of the hght brigade." about which 
the EngUsh poet Tennyson has written a splendid 
poem. This brigade was ordered to recapture some 
gmis which had been taken from the English. But 
by mistake they attempted to take a batter}' two 
miles away, in the very center of the Russian army. 

'• Half a league, half a league, 
Half a league onwai*d. 
All in the vallev of death 
Rode the six hundred. 
' Forward, the Light Bngade ! 
Charge for the guns ! ' he said ? 
Into the vallev of death 
Rode the six hundi-ed."' 

'••'Forward, the Light Brigade!* 
Was there a man dismayed ? 
Not tho' the soldier knew 

Some one had blmidered. 
Theii-s not to make i*eply, 
Theirs not to reason why. 
Theirs but to do and die : 
Into the Valley of Death 

Rode the six hundred. 

*' Cannon to right of them, 
Cannon to left of them. 
Cannon in ft-ont of them 
Volleved and thundered : 



THE TURKS 



305 



Stormed at with shot and > 
Boldly they rode and well. 
Into the jaws of Death, 
Into the mouth of Hell 
Rode the six hundred. 



hell. 



^^^H 


^^^^^H^^^sppipmfpHPii 






_ JU^^. .^f- ^^BHifeK '■^^^^■^^^ 


> " t^^- 



The Capture of Sebastopol. 

" When can their glory fade ? 
O the wild charge they made! 

All the world wondered. 
Honor the charge they made ! 
Honor the Light Brigade, 

Noble six hundred ! "^ 

This war was ended when the Russian strong- 
hold of Se-bas'-to-pol was taken. The Russians 



306 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

agreed not to keep a war fleet in the Black Sea, and 
not to interfere any more in the affairs of Turkey. 
In 1876 Turkey massacred thousands of Chris- 
tians in Bulgaria. This led to another war with 
Russia. Turkey lost Bulgaria and two other prov- 
inces. In 1911, still another war was fought be- 
tween Turkey and the Christian states of the Bal- 
kan Peninsula. Turkey lost all her European 
possessions except the city of Constantinople, and 
a small adjoining territory. 



XXIX. THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS 

All the colonies in America, before 1776, had 
been ruled by governors sent out by the mother 
countries. In that year the thirteen English colo- 
nies along the Atlantic coast of North America 
declared themselves independent of Great Britain 
and became the United States of America. 

A republic is a country where the people them- 
selves choose the men v^^ho govern it. The United 
States was the first republic to be formed in the 
New World. 

The example of the United States in freeing 
itself from the rule of a king was soon felt in both 
Europe and in the Spanish colonies of America. 
The French soldiers who fought with Washington 
went home to take part in the French revolution. 
The French king was put to death and France be- 
came a republic. But the French did not act as 
wisely as the American colonists. They had had 
no experience in governing themselves, while the 
Americans were accustomed to manage their own 
affairs in the towns and cities. 

Since the French people could not bring about 
order, they fell under the control of a man who 
could keep order, Napoleon Bonaparte. 

In 1808 Napoleon conquered Spain and made 
his brother, Joseph, king of that country. 

307 



808 OLD WORLD STEPS TO AMERICAN HISTORY 

The Spanish colonies in America refused to 
submit to the rule of a French king and revolted 
under the lead of Simon Bolivar. 

Bolivar was born in Caracas, Venezuela. When 
a young man, he visited the tomb of Washington 
at Mount Vernon. He resolved to follow the ex- 
ample of the great patriot and devote his life to 
obtaining the independence of Venezuela. 

In 1811 he called a meeting of the citizens of 
Caracas. A declaration of independence was 
signed, and Fran-cis'-co Miran'-da, an older patriot 
than Bolivar, was made chief. A few days after 
this a fearful earthquake destroyed the city and 
killed several thousand of Miranda's soldiers. 

The Spanish governor had ten thousand men 
sent from Spain, and he soon got his power back. 
Miranda was sent to Spain where he died in prison. 
But Bolivar escaped and lived to see his country 
free and independent. 

He at first fled to the island of Jamaica. A 
few years later he returned to South America. He 
was made dictator at Lima in 1823. Peru and 
Venezuela joined forces. They defeated the Span- 
ish army on the lofty plain of A-ya-cu'-cho, twelve 
thousand feet above the sea. A new republic was 
formed and named Bolivia in honor of the leader. 

Soon afterwards the republics of Colombia, 
Ecuador, and Venezuela were formed. 

A few years before this, in 1818, Chile and the 



THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS 309 

Argentine Republic were organized. Ten years 
later Paraguay and U'-ru-guay were separated 
from Argentina and became distinct republics. 
Brazil remained an empire under the rule of Dom 
Pe'-dro II till 1889. It then became a republic. 

In Mexico there was a long and bloody war 
with Spain. The leader in the war for Mexican 
independence was I-tur-bi'-de, who finally de- 
feated the Spanish in 1821. Mexico was declared 
independent and Iturbide became emperor of the 
country. In 1824, the form of government was 
changed to a republic. 

Napoleon III attempted to seize Mexico in 
1861 and make an Austrian noble, Max-i-mil'-i-an, 
emperor. But the United States interfered, and 
declared that she would protect the young repub- 
lics in America. The French troops sailed back 
to France, and Maximilian was captured and shot 
by Mexican soldiers. 

During this same period (1808-21) the little 
states of Central America also drove out their 
Spanish governors, and began to govern themselves 
as republics. We might call the time between our 
own Revolution and 1824 the revolutionary age, 
since there were no less than sixteen new republics 
formed by revolutions during that time. 



Reference Index 



Aachen {d'hen), 182 

Abd er Rah'man, 177 

A'bra ham. 59. 170 

Ac 'bar, 33 

Achaeans (a herons), 79 

Achilles {a hiVlez), 75 

A crop'o lis. 80. 95 

Ac'ti urn. 139 

A'dri an op'o lis. 152 

Ae gos Pot'a mos {e'gos), 98 

Ae o li ans {e o^li ans), 79 

Ae ne as {e ne^as). 107 

Ae qui ans {e'quians), 122 

Aetius {a e'shus). 154 

Afghan is tan', 29 

A^gra, 32 

Al'a ric, 152 

Al'ba Lon'ga, 108 

Al ci bi'a des, 97 

Al'cuin, 182 

Aleman'ni, 163 

Al ex an'der, the Great, 28, 101 

Al ex an'dri a. 104. 176 

Al'fred, 192 

Amu'lius, 108 

A my'tis, 52 

An'cus Martius {mar' shi us) . 

112 
An'gles, 166 
An'tioch, 213 
An ti'o ehus, 127 
An to ni'nus, 148 



An 'to ny, 137 

A pol'lo, 74 

Arbe'la, 105 

Ar ca'di us, 152 

Ar cot', 37 

Ar'go nau'tic Ex pe di' ti on, 

175 
Ar is ti'des. 88 
Aris tot'le, 101 
Ar min'i us, 140 
A'runs, 117 
Ar'thur. King, 167 
Ar'vans. 23 
As'shur ba ni pal', 52 
As syr'i a, 47, 62 
As ty'a ges, 63 
Ath'ens, 79 
Ath OS, Mount, 87 
At'las, 74 
At'tila, 153 
Aug'us tine, 169 
Augus'tus, 139 
Aus'ter litz, 267 
Av'entine, 112 

B 

Ba'bel, 49 
Ba'ber, 33 
Bab'y Ion, 105 
Bab y lo'nia, 47, 63 
Ba'con, Roger, 17, 245 
Bactri a, 63, 105 
Bagdad', 177,209,231 



310 



INDEX 



311 



Bal bo'a, 243 

Be his tun', 66 

Bel, 54 

Bel shaz'zar, 55, 63 

Bis'marck, Otto von, 285 

3o ab dil', 243 

Bon var, 308 

Bo'na parte, Xa po'le on, 262 

Bozzaris (hot za'res) , 302 

Britain, 135 

Brit'ons, 166 

Bru'tus, 116, 137 

Bu ceph^a lus, 102 

Buddha {hood' da) ,2^ 

Bu sen'to, 153 

Bv zan'ti um. 151 



'a'a ba. 170 

"a'diz, 57 

'ae sar {se'zar), 131, 135 

^al cut'ta, 36 

lal'i cut, 36 

!al'y do'ni an Hunt. 75 

'am by^'ses, 64 

'a'naan, 59 

'an'nae, 126 

a nute', 198 

an'ter bury. 169 

a'pet, Hugh, 221 

'ar'le on, 167 

ar'lo man, 181 

;ar'thage, 57, 123 

as san'der, 106 

as'sius, 137 

ath'er ine. the Great. 251 

at'iline, 134 

a'to, 128, 137 

a vour', 297 

en taurs'. 74 



Ce'res, 72 

Cer'be rus, 74 

Chae ro ne a {ker o ne'a), 98 

Chaldea (kal de'a),i8 

Chalons (sha Ion'), 154 

Chang, 15 

Charlemagne (shar'le man'), 

164 
Charles XII of Sweden, 250 
Che Hoang ti (che hn-an^'te), 

10 
Cheops (ke ops), -^0 
Che rus'ci, 140 
Christians, 148 
Cic'ero, 134 
Cim'bri. 131 
Ci'mon. 93 

Cir'cus Max'i mus, 112 
Clau'di us, 127 
Cle'opa'tra. 139 
Clis'the nes, 84 
Clive, 36 
Clo taire', 164 
Clotil'de, 162 
Clo'vis, 161 
Co'drus. 83 
Col la ti'nus, 116 
Col'os se'um, 144 
Co lum'bus. 238 
Co mit'i a Cu'ri a'ta. 110 
Co mit'ia Cen tu'ri a'ta. 113 
Comit'ia Tri bu'ta, 114 
Con fu'cius, 12 
Con'stan tine, 148 
Con'stan ti no'ple. 151 
Con stan'ti us, 150 
Cor do'va, 178 
Cor'inth, 78, 88 
Coroebus (ko re'bus), 78 
Cor'tez, 271 



312 



INDEX 



Cras'sus, 134 
Crete (kret), 80 
Cri'to, 100 

Crom'well, Oliver^ 254 
Cro'nos, 72 
Cy ax'a res, 63 
Cy'clops, 73 
Cy'pruS;, 57 
Cy'rus, 55, 63 

D 

Dag'obert, 164 

Danes, 193 

Dan'iel, 54 

Dan'te, 291 

Da ri'us, 66, 84 

Delhi {deVle),dS 

De'los, 92 

Del'phi, 76, 77 

Del'ta, 39 

Dem'a ra tus, 89 

De me'ter, 72 

De mos'the nes, 99 

Des'i de'rius, 184 

Di an'a, 74 

Di'o cle'tian, 148 

Domitian (do mish'an), 146' 

Do'ri ans, 79 

Do ris'cus, 87 

Dra'co, 83 

Dry'ads, 74 

Duil'lius, 123 

E 

Ec bat'a na, 66 

E'dith, 201 

Edward the Confessor, 198 

Egbert, 167 

E'gypt, 38 

E pam i non'das, 98 



Eth'el bert, 169 
Eth'el red, 195 
E tru'ria, 110 
Eu rip'i des, 95 
Eu phra'tes, 47 



Fa'bius, 126 

Faus'tulus, 109 

Francis I, 271 

Francis Joseph, 288 

P'ranks, 161 

Fred'er ick Bar'ba ros'sa, 215, 

224 
Frederick II, 215 
Frederick the Great, 279 



Gal'i le'o, 292 

Ga ri baFdi, 296 

Gauls, 122 

Gen'ghis Khan, 15 

Gen'o a, 217 

George III, 256 

Ger man'i cus, 141 

Gis'go, 126 

God'frey, 213 

God win. Earl, 201 

Gor di an Knot, 103 

Gor'gons, 74 

Go'shen, 44, 60 

Goths, 151 

Gracchus (grak^us), 130 

Graces, 74 

Gra ni'cus, 102 

Gra'tian, 152 

Greg'o ry, the Great, 167 

Gun hiFda, 198 

Gufen berg, John, 233 

Guth rum (goth'rom), 194 



INDEX 



313 



H 

Ha'des, 72 

Ha'dri an, 148 

Hamircar, 125 

Han'ni bal, 125 

Har'old, 201 

Haroun al Raschid {ha roon^al 

ra'shed), 178 
Har'pa gus, 64 
Har'pies, 74 
Has'drubal, 126 
Has'tings, 202 
He'brews, 58 
Hegira (he jVra), 175 
Hel'las, 69 
Hel'len, 69 
HeFles pont, 58, 87 
Hen'gist, 166 
Henry VII, 221, 271 
Henry, Prince, 240 
Henry the Fowler, 223 
Her a'cli us, 176 
Her'cu la'ne um, 144 
Her'cu les, 75 
He're, 72 
Her ni'cians, 122 
He rod'o tus, 63, 68 
He'si od, 71 
Hes'ti a, 72 
Hez'eki'ah, 51 
Hin'dus, 23 
Hi'ram, 57 
Hit'tites, 43 

Hoang ti (hwang^ti), 10 
Ho'mer, 71 
Ho no'ri us, 152 
Hor'ace, 142 
Ho ra'ti us, 117 
Hor'sa, 166 



Hun'gary, 153 
Huns, 151 
HyMra, 74 
Hys tas'pes, 66 

I 
Id'za bar, 49 
In'dia, 105" 
In'dra, 23 
In'dus, 105 
I o'ni ans, 79 
I'rene, 179 
Is a bel'la, 243 
Ish'mael, 170 
Is'sus, 103 
Iturbide (e^oor bertha) , S09 



Ja'cob, 43, 60 
James I, 254 
Ja'nus, 139 
Ja'son, 75 
Je'han, 34 
Je ru'sa lem, 61, 134 
Jira'mu, 19 
John, King, 204 
Jop'pa, 217 
Jor'dan, 60 
Jo seph, 43, 60 
Josh'u a, 61 
Ju'li an, 151 
Ju'no, 74 
Ju'pi ter, 72, 74 
Jus tin'i an, 184 
Jutes, 166 

K 

Kar'nak, 45 

Khai'ber Pass {ki'ber), 29 

Ko'ran, 174 



314 



INDEX 



Kos suth', 284 

Kublai Khan {koo'bli kari) ,75 



Lars Por'se na, 117 
Lati'nus, 108 
La vin'ia, 108 
La vin i um, 108 
Le'o, 185 
Le on'i das, 89 
Leuc'tra, 98 
Liv'y, 107, 142 
Lom'bards, 184 
Lothaire', 189 
Louis XIV, 257 
Louis XV, 259 
Louis XVI, 260 
Lu'ce res, 110 
Ly cur'gus, 81 
Ly san'der, 98 
Ly sim'a chus, 106 

M 

Mac e do'ni a, 97, 128 
Ma dras', 36 
Ma gel'lan, 243 
Ma'gi, 67 
Magne'si a, 127 
Mag'yars, 223 
Mah'moud, 30 
Man da'ne, 64 
Man ti ne'a, 98 
Ma'nu, 81 
Mar'a thon, 85 
Mar cell' us, 
Mar'co man'ni, 148 
Mar'co Polo, 16,237 
Mar'cus Au re li us, 148 
Mar do'ni us, 91 
Ma'ri us, 131 



Mars, 74, 108 

MarteF, Charles, 177 

Max im'i an, 148 

Mazzini (mat se^ne), 296 

Mec'ca, 170 

Medes, 63, 69 

Me'di a, 63 

Mem phis, 40 

Me'nes, 81 

Mer'cu ry, 74 

Mi'chael An'ge lo, 272 

Mil'an, 224 

Mil ti'a des, 85 

Mi ner'va, 74 

Mi'nos, 81 

Mi ran'da Fran cis'co, 308 

Mith'ra da'tes, 134 

Mo guls', 33 

Mo ham'med,170 

Mo ham'med II, 232 

Molt'ke, von, 286 

Mont calm', 272 

Mont' fort, Simon de, 219 

Mo'ses, 81 

Mu'ses, 74 

Myc'ale, 91 

N 

Na po le on III, 269 

Nar'ces, 184 

Neb'u chad Nez'zar, 52 

Nel'son, 264 

Ne me'a, 78 

Nep'tune, 74 

Ner'va, 146 

Neth'er lands. New, 270 

Nicae'a, 151,213 

Ni ceph'o rus, 179 

Nich'o las V, Pope, 228 

Nic o me'di a, 148 



INDEX 



315 



Nile, 39 
Nim'rod, 48 
Nin'e veh, 50 
No'ah, 4-8 
North'men, 191 
Nu'ma, 1 1 1 
Nu'mi tor, 108 

o 

Octa'vius, 139 

O'din, 158 

Odoa'cer, 152 

O'jin, 19 

O lym'pi a, 78 

O lym'pus, Mount, 74 

O'mar, 176 

O res'tes, 154 

Or'mazda, 67 

Os'tro goths, 161 

Oth'rys, Mount, 73 



Phar'salus, 137 

Phid'i as, 95 

Phil'ip, 98 

Phirip Au gus'tus, 215 

Philip pi, 139 

Pho ci ans ( fo^ she ans), 98 

Phoenicia (fe nish^a), 56,61, 

69,76, 104 
Picts, 167 
Pin'dar, 102 
Pip'pin, 164 
Pi sis'tra tus, 80 
Pizar'ro, 271 
Plas'sey, 37 

Plataea (pla te'a), 85,91 
Pla'to, 93 
Plebe'ians, 120 
Plu'to, 72 

Pompeii (pom pa^ye), 14!4i 
Pom'pey, 132 
Pon'ti fex Max'i mus. 111 
•Po'rus, 29, 105 



Pal'atine, 109 


Po sei'don, 72 


Palestine, 104,217 


Ptolemy (toVe my), 106 


Par'is, 162 


Pu'nic Wars, 123 


Par'sees, 67 


Pun jab', 29 


Par'the non, 95 


Q 


Pa tri'cians, 120 


Patrick, Saint, 167 


Qui ri'nus, 110 


Pau sa'ni as, 91 


Quiri'tes, 110 


Pe lop'i das, 98 


R 


Pel o pon ne'sus, 79 


Per i an'der, 80 


Ramadan', 172 


Per'i cles, 93 


Ram'e ses, 45 


Perry, 21 


Ram'nes, 110 


Per sep'o lis, 105 


Raph'a el, 292 


Peter the Great, 246 


Regillus (re jiVlus), 119 


Peter the Hermit, 210 


Re'mus, 108 


Petrarch, 228 


Rhe'a, 108 


Pharaoh (faVo), 43 


Richard, 215 



316 



INDEX 



Ri'en zi, 290 
Rol'lo, 198 
Rom'ulus, 108 
Rox a'na^ 105 
Ru'bicon, 139 
Ru'rik, 200, 246 



Sa'bines, 110 

Saradin, 215 

Sal'a mis, 90 

St. Sophi'a, 151 

Sa ma'ri a, 5 1 

Sam nites, 122 

Sar'da na pa'lus, 52, 63 

Sar'dis, 84, 87 

Sar'gon, 49 

Sax'ons, 166 

Scipio (sip'i o), 125 

Se ja'nus, 143 

Seleu'cus, 106, 127 

Sen nach'e rib, 51 

Ser to'rius, 132 

Se'ti, 45 

Sex'tus, 114 

Shech'em, 59 

Sib'ylline Books, 115 

Sicily, 97 

Sil'vi us Pro cas, 108 

Soc'ra tes, 93, 99 

SoFo mon, 6 1 

So'lon, 83 

Soph'o cles, 95 

Spar'ta, 79, 89 

Spar'ta cus, 132 

Sphinx, 74 

Spu'ri us Lar'tius, 118 

Sta gi'ra, 101 

StiFicho, 152 



SuFla, 131 

Su ra'jah Dow'lah, 37 
Su'sa, 66, 105 
Sweyn, 198 
Syr'acuse, 97, 123 



Tac'i tus, 157 
Tam'er lane, 33, 229 
Tan'a quil, 113 
Tan'cred, 213 
Ta'nis, 45 
Ta'rik, 176 
Tar'quin, 112, 114 
Te'rah, 59 
Teu'toberg, 141 
Thap'sa cus, 137 
Thebes, 98 

The mis'to cles, 88,91 
The od'o ric, 161 
The o do'si us, 152 
Ther mop'y lae (le), 89 
Thes'pi ans, 90 
Thor, 160 
Thu cyd'i des, 95 
Ti'tans, 73 
Titus, 143 

Ti'tus Her min'i us, 118 
Tra'jan, 148 
Treb'ia, 125 
Tras i me'nus, 125 
Tro jan War, 75 
Troy, 107 

TuI'lus Hos tin us, 1 1 1 
Turks, 274, 299 
Tyre, 104, 123 



u 



U lys'ses, 75 
Ur, 59 



INDEX 



317 



Ur'ban, 210 
U'tica, 137 

V 

Va'lens, 151 

Val en tin'i an^ 151 

Valhal'la, 158 

Valky'rie, 158 

Va'rus, 140 

Vas'co da Ga'ma, 36, 240 

Ven'ice, 217 

Ve'nus, 74 

Ver cin get'o ris, 135 

Ver'gil, 142 

Ves pa'sian, 143 

Ves'ta, 108 

Victor Em man'u el, 294 

Vis'igoths, 152 

Vlad'i mir, 200 

Volscians (voV shi ans) , 121 

Vul'can, 74 

w 

Wash'ing ton, 256 



WelFing ton, 267 
William the Conqueror, 200 
William of Orange, 256 
William I, 289 
Wit'tekind, 187 
Wolfe, James, 272 



Xanthippe (zan tip'e), 100 
Xanthippus (zantip^us), 
Xerxes {zerVs es), 58, 87. 



Ya'o, 9 
Yu, 10 
Yu' Chau, 9 



Za gros Mountains, 53 

Za'ma, 127 

Zed e ki'ah, 53 

Zend'-A ves'ta, 68 

Ze'no, 154 

Zo ro as'ter, 67 



